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DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL 

SKETCH 

OF 

BEDDGELERT 

AND 

Its Nrtgljtsourfjootr. 



BY JAMES HEWS BRANSBY. 



Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra. 

SANNAZARO. 



LONDON : 
PUBLISHED BY T. M. CRADOCK, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 
1840. 






5415 



'c-z. 



CARNARVON: 
PRINTED BY W. POTTER AND CO. 



A SKETCH, &c. 



Beddgelert, a village consisting, for the most 
part, of a few cottages, a neat church, and a pic- 
turesque old bridge, is situated in the bosom of a 
romantic valley, about thirteen miles to the south- 
east of Carnarvon. It can boast of an inn, under 
admirable superintendence, which secures to the 
visitor, at a moderate charge, not only an elegant 
retirement, but the kindest attention, and every 
comfort of a well-ordered home. He who loves 
to study nature in her own domain, in all her 
magnificence, in all her sweetness, and in all her 
glory, may find at Beddgelert enough, and far 
more than enough, to gratify ?nd improve his taste. 



Many exquisite subjects present themselves both 
to the painter and to the poet. Mountains that 
seem like the barriers of a world, inaccessible peaks 
and precipices, fairy glens, enamelled fields, 
meandering rivulets, expansive lakes, — all are here, 
and all breathe enchantment. They fill the mind 
by turns with awe and ecstacy. They bear us 
away to the land of dreams. Indeed, there is no 
fiction which on a spot so rich in all kinds of 
beauty, and in all kinds of grandeur, the imagina- 
tion cannot readily supply. From this realm of 
overpowering wonders, it is with difficulty that we 
withdraw our gaze; but let it be once seen, and 
it is impressed upon the recollection for ever. 

Persons alive both to the forms and to the co- 
louring of nature, who have travelled in the North 
of England, in the Highlands of Scotland, and 
in Switzerland, concur in testifying that they have 
not met with any place where, within so short a 
distance, there is so much to admire as at Bedd- 
gelert. 

Here also is matter in abundance for observers 
who take an interest in the great histoiy of man. 
Hitherto, perhaps, they have deceived themselves 



into a belief that the Principality of Wales is in- 
habited only by 

" Souls made of fire, and children of the sun." 

If they visit these tranquil and happy moun- 
tains, they will discover, to their astonishment, 
in the direct descendants of the Britons, our 
fellow countrymen, that the primitive modes of 
patriarchal life are not altogether lost. They will 
perceive many a vestige of habits and observances, 
many a picture of actions, manners, and thoughts, 
that we may justly characterize as having been 
those of the earliest time. Though the occupa- 
tions of the people in this wild district are rude 
and simple, the people themselves are not igno- 
rant, or fierce, or unfeeling. They speak the 
language and retain the superstitions as well as 
the proverbial sayings of their forefathers ; severe, 
however, as are the hardships of their condition, 
it will be obvious to any one who wanders among 
them, that theirs is the hearth of contentment, 
peace, and love — a hearth that is sanctified by reli- 
gion. They are familiar with the knowledge that 
leads to everlasting life ; and in their dwellings 

b 2 



may be heard the voice of prayer, and the morning 
and evening song of praise. Oh, how sweet, 
how heavenly, how touching, is the sound "as- 
cending from a speck in the immensity !" How 
it goes to the very soul ! 

Tradition informs us that Llewelyn the Great, 
who reigned towards the end of the twelfth cen- 
tury, and who distinguished himself by prodigies 
of heroism, was accustomed, in the hunting season' 
to take up his abode, with his wife and children, 
in the vale in which Beddgelert now stands. He 
had a favourite greyhound, Kelert, which had 
been given to him by his father-in-law, the re- 
nowned King John. The story is, that, on a 
particular occasion, all the family had gone from 
home, leaving an infant in the cradle, and that, 
while they were absent, a wolf entered the house. 
\Yhen the prince returned, his greyhound met him 
at the door. The poor animal was wagging his 
tail ; and his jaws were covered over with blood. 
An appalling thought in a moment suggested 
itself to Llewelyn's mind. He ran with breath- 
less haste into the room in which the child had 
been left ; and all his fears seemed to be imme- 



diately confirmed. The cradle was overturned; 
the floor around it was besmeared with blood. 
Concluding in his paroxysm that the greyhound 
had destroyed the child, he grasped his sword and 
slew him. On lifting the cradle, however, he 
found the little innocent in perfect safety, sleeping 
beside the dead wolf* It is not in words to de- 
scribe the tumultuous, conflicting emotions that 
agitated his breast. He erected a. tomb over the 
grave of his faithful dog ; and from this affecting 
incident, the place is said to have derived the 
name of Beddgelert, or The Grave of Kelcrt. 

That the story is well known in Wales, is evi- 
dent from the adage still current among the Welsh 
peasantry : " he repents as much as the man who 
killed the dog." It is to be seen sculptured on a 
rock in the county of Limerick ;* and it is intro- 
duced into an old English romance, under the 
title of " the Knight and the Greyhound." In- 
deed, it seems to have prevailed over the whole of 
Europe. Nor is this all. Sir William Jones 
met with a tale similar in its principal circum- 
stances, when lie was translating an ancient drama 
* Croker's Irish Tales. 



from the Persian. The coincidence is by far too 
remarkable to justify us in deeming the traditions 
to be independent of each other ; and who shall 
now determine which is the genuine picture and 
which the copy ? It will frequently happen, if 
a popular story or belief be common to several 
countries, that it is impossible to fix the place of 
its birth or to assign it to its real origin. 

Of late years, men eminent for philological 
attainments have employed themselves in tracing 
such narrations, through different channels, from 
age to age, and from one quarter of the globe to 
another. It must be acknowledged that their re- 
searches have not always proved satisfactory ; but 
they have ascertained that an oriental source has 
supplied us with many of the wild legends and ro- 
mantic allegories of the cottagers' fire-side and of 
the nursery. Morier heard the story of Whittington 
and his cat in Persia. Maglotti told it in Italy of 
Anselmo Degli Ormanni. It exists likewise in 
Denmark. The legend of the Seven Sleepers, 
adorned as it is with so much elegance by Gibbon,* 
has its parentage in a very early Greek story. 
• Decline and Fall, cbap. xxxiii- 



9 



It has been the delight of the German peasant for 
unknown centuries ; its prototype may, perhaps, 
be discovered in " the Golden East," — in the 
day-dreams of Hafiz or Sadi. 

At Beddgelert was once a splendid Priory of 
Augustine monks. It must have been founded 
at a very remote period ; for it is described in 
Rymer's Fcedera, as the oldest religious house in 
all the country, except Bardsey. The building 
was of considerable magnitude. It had many 
apartments appropriated to different uses ; and, 
being on the high road from England and West 
Wales into North Wales, and from Ireland and 
North Wales into England, it often afforded lodg- 
ing to travellers whom darkness or tempest had 
overtaken. Llewelyn endowed it with munificent 
grants of land. It received great damage in con- 
sequence of an accidental fire in 1283. That the 
brotherhood might be enabled to support their 
hospitality, Edward the First took measures for 
putting the edifice into complete repair ; and in 
augmentation of its income, Anian, bishop of 
Bangor, about the year 1286, remitted to all 
benefactors who " truly repented of their sins," 



10 



forty days of any penance that might be inflicted 
on them.* 

The prior had many granges in Carnarvonshire 
and Anglesey, and an allowance of fifty cows and 
twenty-two sheep, together with a certain share of 
the bees on several estates. Every farm in the 
district had then its colony of bees ;f and although 
an appropriation of them to the maintenance of 
the Priory may, at first sight, seem curious, it 
is easy to imagine why they were highly valued. 
They have always been very numerous in Pales- 
tine. Frequent mention is made in the sacred 
volume, of " honey out of the rock."]: The Scrip- 
tures also speak of honey as forming a part of the 
presents which it was usual to send to persons of 
distinction^ Canaan is described as " aland flow- 
ing with milk and honey ."|| John the Baptist is 
said to have lived upon " locusts and wild ho- 
ney ;"1f and among the articles of food set before 

* Rymer ii. 317. 

t There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress built, 
The free-born wanderer of the mountain air. 

Byron. 
X Deut. xxxii. 13. 2 Chron. xxxi. 5. Psalm lxxxi. 16. 
5 Gen. xliii. 11. 1 Kings xiv. 3. 
I! Exod. iii. 8. IT Matt. iii. 4. 



1] 



our Saviour, when, after his resurrection, he ate 
with his disciples, was a piece of an honey-comb.* 
These circumstances combined have, doubtless, 
had their share in leading the uninstructed — and 
that in nearly all countries and times — to look 
upon the bee with a feeling of superstitious reve- 
rence that approaches to idolatry. Mead, the pro- 
duce of the bee, was the favourite drink, the nectar 
of the ancient Britons, and their attachment to 
this extraordinary little insect ascended to a 
very remote period. According to their popular 
belief, " tli3 high origin of the bees is from para- 
dise ; it was on account of man's transgression 
that they left it; and then God gave them a 
blessing."f The priests maintained that, there- 
fore, no mass ought to be celebrated except by the 
light of wax. 

On the dissolution of monasteries by Henry the 
Eighth, the revenues of the Priory at Beddgelert 
were estimated at seventy pounds, three shillings, 

* Luke xxiv. 42. 

t Bonedd gwenyn o baradwys pan yw ; ac o achaws 
pechawd dyn y dacthynt oddyno, ac y dodes Duw rad 
arnynt.— Leges Wallu, 



12 



and eight pence. Edward Conway is stated to 
have been the last prior.* 

It has, however, ceased to be. " It hath not 
been inhabited or dwelt in, from generation to 
generation. "f The ploughman has drawn his 
obliterating furrow over it ; we seek in vain even 
for its ruins,t 

What interesting associations cluster round such 
a spot ! The barefooted monks, each in his grey 
habit, with his leathern girdle, his crucifix, and 
his rosary, seem to stand before us. We picture 
to ourselves the inflexible confessor and the timid 
noviciate ; we hear the authoritative question and 
the half reluctant reply. We see the midnight 
procession ; and listen to the chaunt and the 
anthem, now swelling in accents high and clear, 
now returning, and now floating away as if in 
melancholy sadness. Though we must acknow- 
ledge, when we consider the age in which 
these institutions flourished, that something may 
be advanced in their favour, we have reason 

* Dugdale's Monasticon, Hi. 21. 

t Is. xiii. 20. : etiam perierc ruinae. 



13 



enough to rejoice that their date is past, and that 
they have sunk into oblivion. To live religiously 
we are not called upon to give up all the innocent 
pursuits and gratifications of human nature ; for 
what is life, uncheered by life's sweetest charities, 
unblest by its holiest ties — life without interest, 
without change, and, as far as this world is con- 
cerned, without hope ! 

The Priory was dedicated to Saint Mary. Mr. 
Pennant was inclined to believe that it consisted 
of both men and women, who lived under the 
same roof, and were strictly separated from each 
other by a wall. Perhaps the conjecture, — and 
it is nothing more than a conjecture, — derives 
some plausibility from the fact, that there is a 
piece of ground, near the church, which to this 
day is called D61 y Lleian, — The Nuns Meadow. 

Opposite to the village, on the western side, 
frowns the huge steep of Moel Hebog, the Hill 
of the Hawk. Not far from the brow of this 
mountain is a cave in which Owen Glendwr 
once found a shelter from the enemy. Although 
the character of this Cambrian chief furnishes 
problems on which the learning and ingenuity of 



14 



modern writers have been abundantly exercised, 
and in regard to which the disputants have ar- 
rived at the most opposite conclusions, yet there 
is something about it which has a secret charm for 
the imagination. No one can deny that the Eng- 
lish had greatly excited the national feeling by 
their government of Wales. They had committed 
acts in the highest degree tyrannical and oppres- 
sive ; and Owen, being descended from the ancient 
British princes, asserted his title to the sceptre, 
and raised his arm against the hated dominion of 
the stranger, and for the protection of the rights 
and liberties of his countrymen. Adventurers has- 
tened from the capital, the universities, and every 
quarter of the kingdom, to cheer him on and to 
fight under his standard. The whole of North 
Wales and a great part of South Wales acknowl- 
edged his authority ; his ambassadors were receiv- 
ed in France, as those of an independent prince ; 
and there was in his bravery a fascination which 
led his followers to attempt and execute the most 
hazardous enterprises, and which compelled the 
king and the army of England, when baffled by 
his activity and preserverance, to console them- 



15 



selves with the reflection, that a comet was his 
birth-star, and that he owed his success to his fa- 
miliar intercourse with the land of shadows. His 
exploits form one of the most imposing chapters 
in the page of history, and his name, like that of 
Wallace, will be respected by the generous as 
long as valour and constancy shall be appreciated 
upon earth. 

Just rising from the valley, on the road to Aber- 
glaslyn, is a stone " The Chair of Rhys Goch o'r 
'Ryri," a celebrated mountain bard, the contem- 
porary of Owen Glendwr. Upon this rocky seat, 
it was his practice to seek the inspiration of the 
Muses. Here he composed a poem, the very 
essence of satire and derision, on a Fox that had 
destroyed his favourite Peacock. He died about 
the year 1420, and was buried at Beddgelert. He 
could pass with ease from the borders of the lu- 
dicrous to those of the sublime, and could 
kindle his readers with enthusiasm, or melt them 
into tenderness at pleasure. His impassioned 
and glowing strains were consecrated to freedom 
as one of the choicest blessings that man can re- 



16 



-ceive ;* and they are said to have had a marvellous 
effect in animating the fallen hopes of his country- 
men. Hence he was looked upon with suspicion 
and dislike, and was even proscribed by the Eng- 
lish. "An ordinance," says Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, " was passed by the king, (Henry IV.) in 
1403, to prohibit minstrels, bards, and rhymers, 
from infesting the territories of Snowdon, where 
the remains of a national spirit still glowed."f 

About a mile and a half from Beddgelert, in 
the direction of Tre' MadocJ and Tan-y-Bwlch.§ 
is the far and justly famed Pont Aberglaslyn,|| 
which connects the counties of Carnarvon and 
Merioneth, and is compassed round by a thousand 
spectacles of unimaginable sublimity. The ap- 
proach to it is bounded on either side by moun- 
tains of such terrific height that they seem to carry 

* Dear Liberty ! stern nymph of soul untam'd ; 
Sweet nymph! oh, rightly of the mountain nam'd. 
Wordsworth. 
+ History of England, tcI. i. p/347. Rymer viii. 184. 
Ordonnance de Gales. 
i The town of Madoc. 
§ Under the Pass. 
II The bridge at the confluence of the Blue Lake. 



17 



their cliffs into the sky,* and to stand like the 
walls of some stupendous temple, roofed by the 
vault of heaven; They disregard the thunder and 
the lightning ; the whirlwind disturbs them not. 
The storm rages, and the clouds are hurrying to 
and fro; but they are for ever steadfast, for ever 
serene, for ever still. Time cannot shake those 
eternal pillars. The road, which is narrow and 
steep, winds in such a manner as gradually to 
reveal object after object, and to exhibit in the 
most striking point of view the glories of the scene. 
On the left, the river rolls rapidly along, and being 
every where broken and interrupted by innume- 
rable jutting crags and rocky shelves, it murmurs 
and pauses and foams and sparkles, and murmurs 
yet more distinctly,! in endless variety, till it 
dashes into a broad, impetuous torrent, and then 
pursues its way .J The grandeur, the profound 

* the mountains touch the stars divine.— Spenser, 

t • Decursu rapido de montibus altis 

Dant sonitus spumosi amnes, et in sequora currunt. 
Vikg. JEn. xii. 523. 
t Now from a murmur faint it swell'd anew, 
Like the first note of organ heard within 
Cathedral aisles— ere yet its symphony begin. 

Campbell. 



I 6 



gloom, the surpassing melancholy of the seclusion 
no human tongue can express. The soul feels 
itself alone as it were with God. 

Prsesentiorem conspicimus Deum, 
Fera per juga, clivosque praeruptos 
Sonantes inter aquas. 

It was probably of this wonderful defile that a 
monk in the twelfth century observed : " The 
territory of Conan, particularly Merionyth, is the 
rudest district of all Wales ; the ridges of its 
mountains are very high, ending in sharp peaks, 
and so irregularly jumbled, that if the shepherds 
conversing together from their summits, should 
agree to meet, they could scarcely effect their 
purpose in a whole day.""* 

A few yards above the bridge, was formerly one 
of the best salmon-leaps in Wales. In the au- 
tumnal months, the salmon leave the sea and 
ascend the rivers for the purpose of depositing 
their spawn in the sandy shallows. If in their 
course they meet with a fall of water or a dam, 
they make the most extraordinary exertions to 

* Giraldi Itin. Camb. p.l8S. Ed. 1585. 



19 



surmount it. To accomplish this object, they put 
their tails in their mouths, and poising themselves, 
strike the surface of the water, and spring forward 
with a desperate jerk, as though they had learnt 
their feats at a gymnastic school . They are fre- 
quently unsuccessful in the first attempt, and fall 
back again into the stream. It was no uncommon 
thing, a few years ago, for visitors in their way 
from Beddgelert to Aberglaslyn, to see as many as 
twenty or thirty of these delightful fish gambol- 
ling in different parts of the river. For some time, 
the weir has been broken down. In the reign of 
Henry the Fourth, it was a royal weir. Salmon 
were then reckoned by the Welsh among game, 
and laws were made for their preservation. They 
are now taken by the peasants apparently without 
effort or science. 

In the middle of the last century, these fish 
seem to have been much more abundant than they 
are at present; for it used to be stipulated on the 
part of a servant when he was hired, that he should 
not be obliged to eat salmon more than three 
times a week. It is remarkable that the true 

salmon has never been discovered in any river that 

c 



20 



fells into the Mediterranean, and that the most di- 
ligent enquirers have not been able to trace its 
presence at the tables of the ancient Greeks and 
Romans. 

The fastness of Aberglaslyn has repeatedly been 
the scene of protracted and bloody strife. His- 
tory records that here a handful of gallant Welsh- 
men have more than once disconcerted the hosts 
of the invader, and hurled his proud ensign to 
the earth. 

How highly favoured must we deem ourselves, 
whether we be Cambrians or Saxons, that we live 
at a period, when these mountains no longer echo 
to the battle-cry or stream with gore! Well may 
we congratulate each other on the extinction of 
our antipathies, our heart burnings, and our jea- 
lousies. Well may we rejoice, in whatever part 
of the empire we were born, that we can slake our 
thirst at the same fountains of knowledge, and 
claim an equal share in the same magnificent and 
beautiful institutions, — institutions which have for 
ages been the boast, and which are every day be- 
coming more and yet more deservedly the boast, 
of our beloved country, constituting her glory 



21 



abroad, and her honourable pride, her security, 
her happiness at home. 

It is only justice to add that Wales has long 
been as exemplary in its attachment to the com- 
mon interest, as it was formerly conspicuous in 
struggling for its own independence. 

The road to Tre' Madoc, a distance of between 
four and five miles to the right, is overhung by a 
line of stupendous, uncouth, rugged mountains, 
the sides of which are seamed with clefts and 
chasms Traeth Mawr* and Traeth Bachf spread 
themselves out and form an admirable fore- 
ground ; while the gloomy castles of Harlech 
and Criccieth, towering afar off in ruined splen- 
dour, X excite emotions much holier and higher 
than the cravings of curiosity, in the mind of him 
who knows how to connect the past with the 
present. 

The mountains in this precipitous ridge are 
not more interesting to the common observer from 
the singularity of their figure and situation than 

* The Great Sands. i The Little Sands. 

J But now the wild flowers only round them breathe, 
Yet ruin'd splendour still is lingering here. 

Chllde Harold, Chap. 1. 5 22, 



22 



they are to the mineralogist from their composition 
and structure. On the side of one of them, is a 
mine producing crystals of quartz, which have 
become celebrated and are much prized as 
Snowdon crystals. Clusters are occasionally 
found of a considerable size and of great splen- 
dour; 

At the mouth of the Glaslyn lies the Traeth 
Mawr, a large extent of sands over which the tide 
flows so suddenly that they have sometimes been 
fatal to the adventurous passenger. As far back 
as the year 1625, a bold design was conceived by 
Sir John Wynne, of Gwydir, for an embankment 
which should shut out the sea and gain the surface 
for agricultural purposes. Owing to some cause 
or other, the scheme was soon abandoned ; but it 
has since been carried into execution. A private 
individual, in 1800, secured two thousand acres 
of land from the encroachment of the waters. A 
few years after, he accomplished the gigantic task 
of carrying an embankment, nearly a mile in 
length, from the shore of Carnarvonshire to that of 
Merionethshire, at the western extremity of Car- 
digan Bay ; and he subsequently reclaimed for 
cultivation a tract of seven thousand acres more. 



23 

Those once unprofitable wastes now employ the 
labour of the husbandman and satisfy " his long 
hope*" 

On a portion of Traeth Mawr thus recovered 
from the sea, the modern little town of Tie' 
Madoc has been built. It is laid out in the form 
of an oblong square, having on the eastern side 
a market house, in the upper story of which is a 
spacious assembly room. On the other sides of 
the area are substantial houses, a handsome 
church, and a place of worship for Dissenters. 
A very respectable inn is also to be found here. 

The honour of effecting these improvements 
belongs to the late W. A. Madocks, Esq. To 
his enterprising spirit, they must all be ascribed ; 
and surely they give him a claim to the gratitude 
of his country. Before such benefactors to their 
species, the conqueror, the spoiler of kingdoms, 
and the rapacious destroyer, shrink into insigni- 
ficance and become objects of contempt. 

Towards the north of Beddgelert, at the distance 
of between four and five miles, Snowdon lifts its 
majestic head. A range of mountains, bold, dark 
and precipitous, stretches itself in a curve line, 



24 



across Carnarvonshire, for thirty-six miles, from 
the neighbourhood of Bardsey Island to Penmaen- 
mawr, at the entrance of Conway Bay. Here, 
and there, they are separated from each other by 
transverse vallies. For the most part, their outlines 
are clearly marked ; though sometimes they are 
not distinguishable from the piled clouds that are 
about them. Snowdon forms the centre, and is 
the loftiest. It rules the region, subjecting all 
other altitudes to its sway. None of these, how- 
ever, can be called infant hills. 

" All that expands the spirit, jet appals 
Gathers around their summits, as to show 
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man 
below." 

Snowdon was held sacred by the ancient Bri- 
tons ; and they believed that if a person slept upon 
its top, the most beautiful forms and images would 
float before him, and he would aw r ake in posses- 
sion, and under the influence, of a poetical spirit. 

It was formerly, also, a royal forest and 
abounded with red deer. They were driven from 
these haunts early in the seventeenth century. A 
few remains are still preserved in the parks of some 



25 

of our nobility. The wolf, so much dreaded by our 
ancestors, maintained its ground on Snowdon to 
a comparatively late period. The eagle, during 
time immemorial, regarded the Snowdonian cliffs 
as the territory of his dominion ; but he long since 
shifted his abode. 

On the northern and north-eastern side, the 
botanist finds Alpine heaths and mosses of 
great rarity : here, too, is to be seen many a 
simple flower from which the solitary wanderer 
may draw the delightful argument of confidence 
in God. 

The volcanic fires which constitute so grand a 
feature in the geological history of mountainous 
districts in other parts of the world have doubt- 
less extended their empire to this region. Those 
who have applied themselves to the interesting 
science of geology tell us, that while some por- 
tions of Snowdon are porphyritic, the western 
side is composed of hornstone or chertz, together 
with basaltic columns, pentagonal and standing 
at right angles to the plane of the horizon. These, 
being igneous rocks, are inclosed in great masses 
of schistus, a formation which has of late been so 
ably described by Professor Sedgwick. 



26 

Few tourists are satisfied without climbing the 
steeps of Snowdon ; and not seldom has the visi- 
tor on reaching its summit, stood for some time, 
motionless and silent. Those hills, those rocks, 
those vallies, those streams, those lakes, — what 
could they less ? — have laid strong hold on his 
feelings and thrilled him with ecstatic wonder. 

The perpendicular height of Snowdon, ascer- 
tained by the latest trigonometrical survey, is 
3,571 feet, a little less than three quarters of a 
mile, above the level of the sea. The other points 
by which it is surrounded are of nearly equal ele- 
vation. 

Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Bri- 
tain, is 4,358 feet above the level of the sea. 

Mont Blanc is the loftiest mountain in Europe : 
its height is 15,735 feet. 

The convent of St. Bernard, on the frontier of 
the Valois, is the highest inhabited spot in Europe,, 
being 8,606 feet above the level of the sea ; but 
the mountain rises 2,400 feet above this. 

The hamlet of Antisana, in Mexico, elevated 
3,800 feet above the plain of Quito, and 19,134 
above the sea, is unquestionably the highest inha- 



27 



bited spot on the surface of the globe. Animals 
as well as the vegetable tribes shrink from the 
regions of perpetual snow. 

Chimboraco, in South America, is the highest 
spot which has ever been explored by the curiosity, 
or trodden by the foot of man- Its altilude is 
21,464 feet above the level of the sea. On the 23d 
of June, 1805, Baron Humboldt and a scientific 
companion, with incredible labour reached its 
eastern slope, and planted their instruments on a 
narrow ledge of rock, which projected from the 
vast field of unfathomed snow. The air was re- 
duced to half its usual density, and felt intensely 
cold and piercing. Respiration was laborious, 
and blood oozed from their eyes, their lips, and 
their gums* This elevation was 19,300 feet 
above the level of the sea. 

The Andes, that mighty chain of which Chim- 
boraco forms a part, was long supposed to be the 
highest in the world ; but recent observations have 
assigned this distinction to the Himalayan chain, 
in the eastern hemisphere. The mountains of 
Thibet are above 25,000 feet high. They give 

* Tableau Physique des Regions Equatorial«s, 1807. 



28 



rise not only to the Ganges and the Burampooter 
in India and China, but also to several vast rivers 
in Siberia and Tartary. 

Let it be remembered that the Snowdonian 
mountains, if less stupendous than these, are not 
inferior to them in fantastic beauty. 

Many thousands of Sheep find pasturage on 
Snowdon and the neighbouring mountains. For 
the most part they are not confined within any in- 
closures, and they are never housed. As the sheep, 
generally speaking, is not only a harmless but also 
a stupid animal, having few wants and fewer ex- 
pedients, those of this lofty and extensive range 
have been thought by some zoologists to be a 
distinct race, well suited to the circumstances in 
which they are placed, and exhibiting a greater 
spirit of independence and more powerful capa- 
bilities than the larger sized breeds that occupy 
the brakes and meadows in Leicestershire, and in 
other richly cultivated parts of "merry England." 
The subject presents a curious and interesting 
question, surrounded, however, with difficulties, 
and incapable of being demonstratively settled 
either the one way or the other. 



29 

The sheep of these majestic hills are obliged to 
depend upon themselves for protection from the 
foxes which lurk in the dark cavities and amidst 
the crags, and from birds of prey. At the crisis 
of attack, they generally unite their exertions, and 
show wonderful intrepidity and courage in en- 
countering, harassing, and beating off the enemy. 
On such occasions, they form themselves into a 
compact body, placing the feeble, helpless nurse- 
lings, with their mothers, in the centre. 

During the barren months of winter, they seek 
their food under the snow; and this they do without 
being much reduced in condition. Whenever the 
cold is extremely piercing, they leave the highest 
elevations, and keep very much together. In the 
summer time, they are to be seen, scattered up 
and down, here and there, on the green declivities 
and on the most rugged eminences, grazing in small 
bands of not more than twelve or fourteen each. 

They are shy and timid to an extraordinary de- 
gree. One of every company is always stationed 
upon the look out, forty or fifty yards from the 
rest. On the approach of a stranger, the trusty 
sentinel, as if he had been disciplined in a camp, 



30 



strikes with his foot upon the ground, and utters 
twice or thrice a short hiss or a shrill whistling 
through his nose. In a moment, his associates 
take the alarm, and are gone. They start off and 
run with great agility to a considerable distance, 
and then face suddenly about. This is also the 
practice of the American sheep, and of all the less 
domesticated tribes. 

To enlarge in detail upon their qualities, in- 
stincts, and propensities, would require a treatise. 
One of the most singular is their strong attachment 
to the enchanting wilds of their nativity, — the spot 
where first they "felt the fresh world about them." 
When they are taken from their acquaintances, as 
is sometimes the case, to a pasture many miles off, 
they seldom fail to watch their opportunity ; and, 
stealing quietly away, travel homeward, for the 
most part "between the dusk and the dawn,' 7 
with incredible sagacity and perseverance. 

It must be regarded as a merciful provision, 
with respect to these animals, that the more in- 
hospitable the land is on which they feed, the 
more promptly do they seem to answer to all the 
gentle impulses of nature, — the more assiduous, 



31 



in particular, are the kindness and attention 
which they manifest towards their young. There 
is among them a disease, a sort of paralysis 
which frequently carries off a great number. In 
the last stage of the malady, the poor victims 
falter and sink down, and are unable to lift 
their heads from the ground. It is not an 
uncommon thing to see an ewe, in these cir- 
cumstances, holding up its leg, to invite its 
tottering, starving lamb, to the wretched pittance 
which the udder may still supply. What spectacle 
can be more touching! The man who can be- 
hold these workings of nature without emotion, 
nay, without being melted into tears, has a claim 
upon our pity. 

When one in a flock loses its sight, it is not 
abandoned to its desolate and apparently hopeless 
condition. Some individual of its fellows is al- 
ways ready to attach itself to it, accompanies it 
in its wanderings, calls it back by impatient bleat- 
ings from the precipice, the pool, or the bog,* and 
apprizes it of every danger to which it may happen 

* Parcite, oves, nimium procedere : none bene ripae 
Creditnr.— Virg. Eel. iii. 94. 

D 2 



32 



to be exposed. The moral comes home to our 
hearts. 

Burns had a favourite sheep, " an only pet 
yowe j" he gave it the name of Mailie ; and in a 
pathetic elegy on its death, he places its friend- 
ship on a level with that of a human being, The 
reader may now find himself prepared to enter in 
some measure into his feelings. 

" Through a' the town she trotted by him, 
A lang half mile she could descry him, 
Wi' kindly bleat when she did spie him 

She ran wi' speed ; 
A friend mair faithful' ne'er cam' nigh him, 

Than Mailie dead." 

Perhaps we may also be in a frame of mind to 
perceive new beauty in Merrick's incomparable 
paraphrase of those words in the cxix. Psalm : — 
< ( I have gone astray like a lost sheep ; seek thy 
servant; for I do not forget thy commandments." 
It perfectly unites truth, simplicity, and elegance. 
and is a radiant gem : — 

'.' Thine eyes in me the sheep behold 
Whose feet have wander'd from the fold; 
That guideless, helpless, strives in vain 
To find its safe retreat again : 



33 

" Now listens, if perchance its car 

The shepherd's well-known voice may hear ; 

Now, as the tempests round it blow, 

In plaintive accents vents its woe. 

" Great Ruler of this earthly ball ! 
Do thou my erring steps recall : 
Oh, seek thou him who thee has sought, 
Nor turns from thy decrees his thought." 

There are amiable enthusiasts who please them- 
selves with fancying that as these innocent, de- 
fenceless, unsuspecting animals have been the 
charge of the common Father, through their little 
span of life on earth, so they will rise hereafter to an 
immortal state of existence. The advocates of this 
opinion would fain believe that since in the hea- 
venly world He who was once " led as a lamb to 
the slaughter," sitteth upon the throne, it will be a 
part of its blessedness to look around and see va- 
rious orders of happy beings that range its ever- 
lasting hills, and rejoice in security on every side ; 
to see its valleys smile with flocks against which 
no hand of violence shall be raised, and which 
shall repose amidst the green pastures and beside 
the still waters, through an endless, undeclining 



day.* We might incur, and perhaps deservedly, 
the charge of presumption, if we were to call such 
sentiments unmanly, childish, and weak ; but we 
shall be safe in saying that it is a subject upon 
which we are not ashamed to confess our igno- 
rance. The Gospel, and the Gospel alone, has 
brought life and immortality to light; and in the 
volume of inspiration we find enough to justify 
us in concluding that, as it has been admirably 
expressed, " man is ordained to live, though the 
beast may be left to perish ."f 

It will not be improper to add to the remarks 
which have been offered on the Snowdonian 
sheep, that they are much admired for the deli- 
cacy and fine flavour of their flesh, while their 
wool is both of an indifferent quality and trifling 
in amount. 

The sheep dogs perform their work in perfect 
silence, and often with a skill that adapts itself to 
the exigencies of the moment, and bespeaks no 

* See a pleasing sermon by the Rev. Henry Woodward, 
A.M., in the." Irish Pulpit;" a Collection of Original 
Sermons, p. 21. 

t Dr. Lindsay's Sermons, p. 5. 



35 



small share of the reasoning faculty ; gathering 
sheep from the heights and turning them as they 
are commanded, this way and that way, as far as 
they can catch the sound of their master's voice, 
or observe the motion of his hand. 

At the foot of Snowdon, about six miles from 
Beddgelert, and on the left of the road to Carnar- 
von, is Llyn C welly n — Cwellyn Lake^ — famous 
for a variety of the char, torgoch, or red bellied, the 
Salmo Alpinus of Linnaeus. This fish, which is 
much esteemed for its delicate flavour, inhabits 
some of the lakes of Cumberland, and is abundant 
in those of Switzerland. The angler well knows 
that it is not to be taken with the rod, 

In the back ground of the lake, the barren 
heights and shelving sides of Mynydd Mawr — 
The Great Mountain, — display a most wild and 
romantic sublimity, and invest the scene with ex- 
traordinary interest. On a rock that appears 
inaccessible but by a labour that would scarcely 
be repaid, was in very early times, a fortress, 
where the Britons could secure themselves and 
prevent the enemy from penetrating into the 
northern division of their country, to them, 



36 



notvvithsanding its ruggedness, the loveliest and 
the dearest land of all. 

A tale has been transmitted among the pea- 
sants from age to age, and is still repeated, that in 
the fourth century of the Christian era, Cidwm, a 
monster in human shape, had his residence on 
Mynydd Mawr, where, like a remorseless wolf, he 
was accustomed to wage a war of surprise and 
plunder against the unsuspecting and defenceless. 
It is said that as the son of Constantine the Great 
was passing, with his army, along the road, by the 
edge of Lake Cwellyn, to welcome his mother 
Helena, then on her way from the South to Segon- 
tium, Cidwm shot him in the back with an arrow, 
saying at the same time, "Thou shalt have thy 
dinner before thou goest to the next halting place." 
The youth instantly fell and expired. One of the 
soldiers was dispatched to communicate the sad 
intelligence to Helena. When he had travelled 
between ten and eleven miles towards Tan-y- 
bwlch, he met her, and as soon as she heard of the 
catastrophe, she exclaimed in agony " Croes awr i 
mi!" — Oh, unlucky hour for me! Although the 
story does not rest upon the authority of history 



37 

and is found in no other record than popular tra- 
dition, there is little room to doubt its truth. The 
spot on which Helena expressed her grief is de- 
signated to this day "Croesawr." 

The topographical nomenclature of Wales 
abounds in images. It often describes external 
nature, and often involves a reference to some 
great event, some high deed of war, or some heart- 
rending tragedy* Thus we have Moel y don, The 
hill of the wave; — Moel y cynghorion, The hill 
of counsel; Maen y mellt, The stone of lightning; — 
Ffynon Waedog, The bloody welL — Pant y gwae, 
The hollow of woe ;— Maen y cwynfan, The stone 
of lamentation ; — Llysiau gwaed gwyr, The plants 
of the blood of men. 

Hence, one might almost imagine that constant 
familiarity with objects of infinite magnitude and 
splendour had given an habitual colouring of 
poetry to the mind. To the same magic power 
we may perhaps in no considerable degree as- 
cribe it that Wales is the region of romance. It 
is surprising that such materials of deep and per- 
manent interest should not more frequently have 
been incorporated into works of fiction. To say 



38 



uothing of legendary tales which the shepherds 
relate, or of still remoter relics of mythology, 
there are stories of personal adventure connected 
with chieftains, legislators, and heroes in the 
darkest and in the most brilliant periods of au- 
thentic British history, that would form an ample 
foundation for any superstructure which genius 
might raise upon them. They would have gratified 
the fancy, and been fitting subjects for the pencil 
of ths mighty enchanter of the North, at whose 
touch a charm spread itself over every scene which 
he undertook to delineate. Many of them are so 
wild and so mysterious in their nature, so extra- 
ordinary iu their incidents, so calculated to awaken 
the most awful sympathies, and at the same time 
so well known in the principality and so utterly 
unknown out of it, that the writer who should 
pourtray them with feeling, taste, and judgement 
would be during good service to the public. 
Strange as it may appear, in this department of 
literature, Wales is unbroken ground;— the field 
has scarcely been entered. 

Half a mile from Llyn Cwellyn, to the right 
hand of the road, is a picturesque cottage, Pla» y 



39 



Nant, a seat of the late Sir Robert Williams, who 
was, during many years, the representative of the 
county in parliament. All, of all ranks, respected 
the worthy baronet for his high and noble genero- 
sity. It was his ambition to convince his tenants, 
both in the vallies and on the hills, that they 
were neither serfs nor slaves. The cottage has a 
pleasing aspect of seclusion and repose : it looks 
tranquillity. 

A little beyond, on the opposite side, is Nant 
Mill, which forms, with its trembling waters, its 
cascade, its bridge, and its amphitheatre of moun- 
tains, a picture singularly rich. Seldom has the 
imagination shaped for itself a sweeter, a more 
enchanting spot of earth. It would have been 
the delight of Claude or of Rembrandt. The 
attempt to transfer it to canvas has often been 
made, and that by our most distinguished artists ; 
but not always with success* 

Half a mile further on is the village of Bettws 
Garmon, so called because its romantic little 
church is dedicated to St. Germanus, bishop of 



* The point from which it should be viewed is the bridge 
at the back of the mill, a few yards from the public road. 



40 



Auxerre. About the middle of the fifth century, 
disputes arose in the western churches respecting 
the nature of original sin and divine grace. The 
British Christians were vehemently accused of 
favouring the heretical side of the question. So 
high did this controversy run, that the British 
prelates asked their neighbours, the bishops of 
Gaul, to interpose. Germanus came over : having 
succeeded in putting down the obnoxious doc- 
trines, he remained for some time in Britain, 
preaching to the people. On oue occasion, he 
resumed a character in which he had signalized 
himself in his youth. A party of Picts and Scots 
were plundering the country in the neighbourhood 
of Mold. Germanus placed himself at the head 
of the Britons, and led them into a defile, where 
they lay in concealment, waiting for the approach 
of the invaders. Just before the engagement, the 
bishop desired his men to remember the word 
which he would give them, and to repeat it at the 
proper time. Accordingly, as soon as the forces 
drew near, he pronounced, "Hallelujah!" and 
immediately there was a shout of " Hallelujah !" 
throughout the army. The sound was reverbe- 



41 



rated from hill to hill; the enemy fled in amaze- 
ment ; and numbers perished in an adjoining- 
river. By our ancient chroniclers this action is 
celebrated under the name of " Victoria Alle- 
luiatica ;" and the spot on which it occurred, 
is still known as Maes Garmon — The Plain of 
Gannon or Germanas.* 

When the traveller has reached the brow of a 
wearisome hill, four miles from Bettws, the castle 
of Carnarvon presents itself immediately before 
him ; and apprizes him of the more than ordinary 
importance of the region into which he is entering 
Although the grandeur of this memorial of past 
times is softened by .the distance at which it meets 
his eye, he soon perceives that it is of vast dimen- 
sions. Its huge and massive walls, frowning over 
the town that has grown up at its base, give an 
air of antiquity and sublimity to the scene, which 
scarcely any thing else is capable of producing 
The works of nature, long as they have stood, are 
unchanged and unchangeable : they are the works 
of man alone that tell us of age and decay. 

Carnarvon constitutes a division of the parish 
* Constan. Vit. S. German. C. 1. 2S. Bed. Hist. i. 17. 



42 



of Llanbeblig ; and within less than half a mile 
of the town, on the right of the road, is the parish 
church, a fabric of no considerable magnitude or 
splendour. The style of architecture proves that 
it was built centuries ago. It is dedicated to St. 
Publicius. The only curiosity in it, is the tomb 
of William GryfTydd, Esq., — son of Sir William 
Gryffydd, of Penrhyn — who died in 1587, and 
Margaret his wife, — daughter of John Wynn ap 
Meredydd, Esq. Their recumbent effigies are of 
the purest white marble, the heads resting upon a 
mat, exquisitely sculptured. He is in a suit of 
armour ; she, in a frilled and ruffled dress, after 
the fashion of the Elizabethan age. On the sides 
of the monument are several small figures, in 
basso relievo, " carved with cunning imagery,"* 
spirited, easy, and life-like ; the workmanship, in 
all probability, of an Italian artist. 

The spacious churchyard is crowded with tomb- 
stones and with little hallowed mounds, that mark 
the last earthly resting places of the old and the 
young, the proud and the humble, the rich and 
the poor. Such a spot is dear to the feelings 
* Spenser. 



43 



of the pensive heart ; there are hundreds who love 
its secluded silence. Indeed, the cemeteries of 
Wales are generally beautiful. They may be 
called the gardens of the dead. It is the custom 
for mourners, in the simplicity of their sorrow, to 
plant evergreens upon the graves of their departed 
friends, and to bedeck them, at certain seasons of 
the year, with flowers and flowering shrubs, with 
rosemary, pansies, daffodils, and eglantine.* The 
usage had its origin in remote times, being fre- 
quently mentioned by the writers of Greece and 
Rome. It is still common throughout Switzer- 
land ; and as late as the reign of Charles the 
Second, it was not altogether extinct in the retired 
villages of England, " We adorn their graves," 
says Evelyn, " with flowers and redolent plants 
just emblems of the life of man, which has been 
compared in Holy Scripture to those fading beau- 
ties, whose roots being buried in dishonour, rise 

* Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round 
Thy harmlesse and unhaunted ground, 
And as we sing thy dirge, we will 
The Daffodill, 
And other flowers lay upon 
The altar of oui love, thy stone. 

Herrick, 1648. 



44 



again in glory."* This fond solicitude is a natural 
and pleasing tribute of affection ; it indicates the 
spirit of the people; and is eminently creditable 
to the principality. 

Not far from Llanbeblig church, the road pas- 
ses through the remains of Segontium, or Caer- 
yn-arfon, an ancient Roman citadel, mentioned in 
the Itinerary of Antoninus, as having been esta- 
blished about the 63rd year of the Christian era.f 
No sooner had the Romans settled in Britain, than 
the prefects showed a determination to crush every 
attempt at forcible resistance to their authority ; 
and this was one of a series of fortresses which 
were ranged at convenient distances, and provided 
with vigilant and experienced troops. It was 
large enough to contain an entire cohort of six 
hundred men, and inscriptions have been found 
which are thought to indicate the number and de- 
signation of the Roman legion from which it was 
garrisoned. Without the walls, was a town, as 



* Evelyn's Sylva, 1664. 

t History affords little evidence that is satisfactory, 
as to the precise year. It seems to have been the work 
of Suetonius Paulinus. " Presidium posthac imposuit 
vicis."— Tacit. An. xiv. 19. 



45 

it may be called, inhabited by labourers, artificers, 
and traders, both Roman and British. Ssgontiurn 
bore what appear to have been the characteristics 
of almost all the Roman settlements in Britain : 
it was placed on a gentle declivity ; it was close 
to a river; and it faced the mid-day sun. 

A few yards to the west, were outworks of an 
oblong shape, comprehending about an acre of 
ground. On two sides, the walls are still nearly 
entire. They are eleven or twelve feet high, and 
six feet thick. Where the facing has been re- 
moved, they exhibit the peculiarities of Roman 
masonry. At one corner is a heap of stones, 
which once formed a circular tower: the foun- 
dations of a similar tower are visible at each of 
the other corners. 

A raised military road, paved with stone, in 
the smooth and accurate manner which distin- 
guishes Roman workmanship, and always kept 
in perfect repair, enabled the garrison at Segon- 
tium and that at Dinas Dinorwic, a few miles to 
the east, to communicate easily with each other. 
The Roman garrisons in the district also held 
mutual intercourse by means of beacons or fire- 



46 



signals, by which intelligence of the existence or 
the apprehension of danger could be conveyed 
with incredible rapidity. 

The citadel of Segontiura was of consequence 
enough to become the resort of foreigners from 
various parts of the Roman dominions. Several 
of the emperors, among them Constantine the 
Great,* honoured it with their presence ; and the 
soldiery here was commanded by some of their 
ablest and most illustrious generals. 

Helen, the daughter of Octavius, duke of Corn- 
wall, the wife of the first cousin of Constantine, 
was born at Segontium. Publicius to whom 
Llanbeblig church is dedicated, was her brother. 
A well in the immediate vicinity still retains her 
name. 

Innumerable relics of the genius and industry 
of the Romans have been found in the ruins of 
Segontium. A few years ago, a furnace was dis- 
covered, which appears from the scoria to have 
been used for the smelting of lead. The spade 
or the plough has often brought to light, coins, tes- 
selated floors, hand-mills, golden rings, chains 

* His accession was A. D. 306. 



47 



and bracelets worn by the officers, spear-heads 
and swords, lamps, and other domestic and 
ornamental vessels, and particularly the Glain 
Neidr, of snake gem, which the Britons believed 
to possess some magical quality, and for which 
they bartered articles, in their estimation of the 
highest value. But among these relics the rarest 
curiosity of all, is an attenuated plate of gold, 
measuring about four inches by one, denominated 
the Gnostic or Basilidian talisman. It is covered 
with characters in Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee, 
representing for the most part the various names 
of the Supreme Being. There is also on it, an 
inscription in astral, or magical characters. The 
Gnostic or Basilidian doctrines prevailed in Gaul 
immediately after the apostolic age. Some of 
them were in unison with the doctrines recorded 
in the magical treatises of a much later date. The 
talisman found at Segontium, is supposed from 
the shape of the letters to be of the second 
century.* 

Whatever may have been some of the results 

* It is now among the treasures in the Museum of the 
Natural History Society, at Carnarvon. 



48 



attributed to the connection of the Roman power 
with the entire district, it was so intimate and 
lasted for so considerable a period, that perhaps 
we shall do well to glance at the events by which 
it was brought about. 

Rome, so long mistress of the world, was at 
first a mud-built village by the water side. In 
process of time, its inhabitants grew rich, and 
were inspired with a love of glory. They fear- 
lessly worked their way over mountains and 
plains, continents and seas, through hosts of 
enemies, and brought them all into subjection. 
This island was the last of their conquests. 

Either from the insatiable love of gain, or from 
the impulse of an unbounded ambition, Julius 
Caesar, who had been made prefect of Gaul, re- 
solved upon invading Britain. He landed at the 
head of a large army on the south-eastern coast, 
in the neighbourhood of the present town of Deal. 
This was 55 years before the Christian era. 

Many and desperate were the conflicts that 
ensued. The battle often raged with fury; some- 
times one party appeared to have the advantage, 
sometimes the other. Eventually, the Britons 



49 



retired with precipitation to the woods, and the 
assailants remained masters of the shore. Winter 
was approaching; and, after a short campaign of 
three weeks, Csesar hastened back with his legions 
to Gaul. 

In the following spring, he made a second de- 
scent upon Britain, eight hundred gallant ships 
following in his track, He found the natives 
posted here and there, in vast bodies, prepared to 
receive him. But, wherever he showed himself 
a happy destiny awaited him ; he was uniformly 
victorious. The British leaders asked for peace, 
and consented to pay tribute; upon which, he 
finally left the country, " having/' in the language 
of a Roman historian, "rather shown Rome the 
way to Britain than annexed it to her territories/' 

After the interval of a century, a similar enter- 
prise was undertaken by the fourth emperor Clau- 
dius. Even at that early period, the zeal of the 
Britons for their country's independence was en- 
thusiastic. Under Caractacus, king of the Silures, 
a tribe inhabiting a portion of what is now South 
Wales, they maintained for several years a brave 
defence. Many of them bound themselves by an 



50 

oath to conquer or to die; and, impatient of de- 
lay, they defied the attack of the enemy, with 
shouts that rent the air. The usual success, how- 
ever, accompanied the Roman arms. Caractacus 
fell into the hands of the victors, and was carried 
in chains to Rome. As he passed through the 
streets of the imperial city, and gazed calmly 
round upon the splendour of its palaces and tem- 
ples, he gave utterance, before the assembled 
multitude, to a natural expression of surprise that 
men who possessed such magnificence at home, 
could envy him his poor hovel in Britain. The 
defeat of Caractacus took place in the year 51. 

Only a small part of the country had hitherto 
been bound to the foot of the imperial throne. 
In the 57th year of the Christian era, during the 
reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus came into Bri- 
tain. The religion which prevailed amosg the 
natives was that of the Druids, who principally 
resided in the Isle of Mona, now Anglesey, which, 
as Selden describes it, " was at that time well 
stored with thick woods and religious groves."* 

* Seidell's Works, vol. III., p, 837. Milton, in his Ly- 
cidas, speaks of " the shaggy top of Mona high." Poems 
on several Occasions, p. 11. Warton's, Edit. 1785. 



51 



The mystical system of the Druids was disgraced 
by the darkest superstitions and the most revolt- 
ing enormities; but as the priests had acquired 
a degree of knowledge which raised them to an 
immeasurable height above the vulgar, it is not 
surprising that this monopoly should have given 
them an absolute controul over the public mind, 
in an age when the rights and duties of the social 
state were little understood. From the begin- 
ning they had fostered a spirit of resistance to the 
Roman power. One of the first resolutions, there- 
fore, which Suetonius formed was to invade their 
retreat and put them to the sword. On approach- 
ing the island with his soldiers, he saw the Bri- 
tish army drawn up on the shore. In the midst 
of them were women running from rank to rank, 
with lighted torches in their hands, their long hair 
floating on their shoulders, and their countenances 
inflamed with rage and madness. The Druids 
stood by, lifting their hands to heaven, and utter- 
ing vehement maledictions. At first the Romans 
were struck with horror at the spectacle ; but their 
general urged them on ; and the victory was easy 
and complete. 

r 



52 

While Suetonius was thus engaged in Anglesey, 
a most formidable rebellion broke out among the 
British tribes, under Boadicea, who was the wi- 
dowed queen of the Tceni,* and whom the Ro- 
mans had treated with shocking indignity. This 
war-like princess may be classed with Semiramis 
of Assyria, Cleopatra of Egypt, and Zenobia of 
Arabia; and it has been said of her, that "she 
performed wonders, more than a man." Her 
dauntless heart swelled within her; her eyes 
flashed, like those of a tigress thirsting for blood ; 
immense crowds of daring and devoted adherents, 
amounting in all to as many as two hundred and 
fifty thousand men, fought at her side; and the 
brave fell before and around her. The proudest 
castles of the Romans were battered down ; their 
moat flourishing settlements and colonies were 
laid waste ; the most splendid and opulent seats 
of their power were reduced to ashes. Seventy 
thousand persons, without distinction of sex or 
age or rank, were swept from the face of the 
earth. 



* The Iceni inhabited Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge 
shire. 



53 



In a short time, Suetonius and his army pre- 
sented themselves to the enemy. The engage- 
ment was furious, obstinate and decisive. The 
well-disciplined forces of the Roman commander 
rushed forward, and overturned everything within 
heir reach. They pursued their victory with the 
slaughter of eighty thousand men. The unhappy 
queen refused to survive such calamities, and 
poisoned herself in despair. 

It was not, however, till the great general, 
Agricola, was sent into Britain by the emperor 
Vespasian, that these convulsions subsided, and 
the first gleams of tranquillity began to appear. 
He was in the vigour of life; the character of his 
mind, too, was lofty, expanded and commanding. 
He saw how desirable it was to remove the sus- 
picions, and win the confidence, of those whom 
he came to govern; and his proceedings were 
distinguished by that prudence and steadiness 
that moderation and good sense, which afford 
the surest indications of wisdom in a ruler. lie 
passed over into Anglesey, and as no opposition 
was offered, he added the sacred isle permanently 
to the empire. His policy, indeed, seems to have 



54 



had a talismanic influence ; for a feeling of re- 
spect, not only towards him but also towards the 
Roman dominion, pervaded the whole country. 

Henceforward, the Romans were much more 
desirous of securing, consolidating and perfecting 
what they possessed, than of making fresh acqui- 
sitions, or of spreading themselves over a wider 
space ; and it was with this view, that so many 
fortifications were raised. 

But the empire at large now exhibited symp- 
toms of decay; its sun was about to go down. 
Rome was no longer to be the envy of surround- 
ing nations; and nothing can be clearer than that 
she had well earned her recompense. She had 
drained that cup of intoxication which, if it but 
touch the lips, is sure to fill the heart with alter- 
nate foolishness and frenzy. Her recovery became 
hopeless. The enemy was at the gate, and she 
was torn by intestine feuds. The people were 
turbulent and intractable ; her rulers were unprinci- 
pled and vacillating; the bonds and relations of 
society were broken. In this desperate state of 
things, the emperors felt themselves obliged to 
withdraw the military from the remoter districts. 



55 



Time after time, the Roman legions were called 
from Britain to fight the imperial battles in Gaul; 
and on each of these occasions they took with 
them detachments of young British soldiers, whom 
they had studiously trained to the art of war. 
Thus the Roman forces in this country gradually 
decreased; and about the middle of the fifth 
century, they quitted the island, never to return. 

The Britons were left to the management of 
their own affairs, to their own councils, and to 
their own protection and defence. In a few years, 
every trace of the Roman administration had 
vanished away; and all the provinces which had 
belonged to the empire were divided among a 
multitude of petty princes, chiefly of British, but 
in part of Roman origin, who, being dignified 
with the title of kings, were haughty in proportion 
to their power, and dared to believe themselves 
great enough to be released from the claims of 
humanity and justice, 

When the Romans bade adieu to our shores, 
the forts and fortified cities remained in unim- 
paired strength ; and it is manifest from the head- 
ing of grants issued by native princes, — who, 



56 

alas ! seem to have used their authority only for 
spoil and oppression, — that Segontium still con- 
tinued to be the seat of government. In the year 
1288, the citadel was dismantled by Edward the 
First, and the facings of the walls were used for 
building Carnarvon Castle, a more magnificent 
fortification, on a more eligible spot. 

An insurrection of the Welsh took place under 
Madoc, a natural son of Llewelyn, in the year 
1294. Segontium was one of the first objects of 
attack. Its inhabitants, after a vigorous resist- 
ance, were overpowered and obliged to surrender ; 
many of them were slaughtered, without mercy ; 
and the citadel was set on fire and utterly de- 
stroyed. Madoc afterwards obtained a pardon, 
by the king's authority. The curious document 
which made it secure, is still in existence. 

The town of Carnarvon, a quarter of a mile 
from the ancient Segontium stands in a delightful 
and picturesque situation, at the mouth of the 
river Seiont, on the south-eastern shore of the 
Straits of Menai. It has been designated "the 
boast of the country;" and, doubtless, it is one of 
the finest towns in North Wales, and one of the 



57 



most important, as well from its position as from 
the flourishing state of its commerce. A great part 
of it is surrounded by its ancient walls, in which 
are several semi-circular towers. Of late years, 
owing to the mildness of its temperature and the 
variety and magnificence of the scenery around, 
it has risen to some celebrity as a bathing-place, 
and has also become the fixed residence of many 
genteel families. The consequence is, that it has 
extended itself far beyond its original limits. 

It carries on a considerable coasting trade with 
Liverpool, Dublin, and London. The principal 
exports are slates and copper ore. Of the former, 
large quantities are shipped, throughout the year, 
to different parts of the kingdom, and occasionally 
to France and to the United States of America. 

To the honour of Carnarvon, there are in thetown 
no prejudices or fancies against communicating 
the blessings of education to the whole body of the 
people. All denominations of Christians seem to 
vie wkh each other in a solicitude to discover the 
best, that is, the surest and most economical 
method by which it is possible to attain so mo- 
mentous an object. Much has already been, done ; 



58 



and must not every one who bears a human bosom 
feel pleasure in beholding these victories over ig- 
norance and superstition, and in looking forward to 
their influence on the character of society ? Surely, 
it is the prayer — the deep and solemn prayer— of 
every Christian, if he deserves the name, that the 
time may come when it will please the common 
Father of all to take the veil from the blinded eyes 
of bigotry, and to give the light of faith and holi- 
ness, pure, free and universal, to all the sons of 
men. 

The benefits that have arisen from an infant 
school established mainly through the kind and 
judicious liberality of the Duchess of Kent, are 
encouraging in an eminent degree. 

After all, the chief distinction of Carnarvon is its 
unrivalled castle. There is something in the sight 
of so majestic a ruin, in whatever direction we ap- 
proach it, or from whatever point it is viewed 
which speaks to the heart and awakens a lively 
and profound admiration. 

This splendid pile was erected by Edward the 
First, whose reign was one continued effort to 
bring the whole island of Great Britain beneath 



59 



his sway. The building was begun in the year 
1283, immediately after the subjugation of Wales; 
and, according to some ancient manuscripts, it 
was completed in the course of the following year. 
We have good reason, however, to believe that the 
work occupied, from its commencement to its ter- 
mination, the space of at least twelve years. 

It is said to have been raised at the expense of 
the Cambrian chieftains, those very persons whom 
the fortification was inteaded to overawe. Be 
that as it may, the fabric itself furnishes an un- 
deniable proof that Edward attached great value 
and importance to his conquest, and that the 
Welsh had too much magnanimity either to claim 
the compassion of their victorious enemy, or 
willingly to lie prostrate at his feet. 

Regarded as a whole, this is the noblest struc- 
ture of the kind in the principality, the master- 
piece and triumph of the architect's skill. Its 
foundations rest upon a rock, which projects into 
the Menai Straits. Its walls are of vast height 
and generally not less than ten feet thick; they 
present a mass of compact solidity which appears 



60 

almost to have defied the ravages of time.* Ori- 
ginally there was within them, gained out of their 
thickness, a gallery of communication which ran 
round the entire fortress, and of which, on the side 
that looks towards the river, more than seventy 
yards are still nearly perfect. From the embattled 
parapet rise several towers of singular magnifi- 
cence, and of various figures, some six-sided, some 
eight-sided, and others having ten sides. 

In front of the principal, and now indeed the 
only entrance, is a mutilated statue of Edward. 
He is in a menacing attitude, with his right hand 
upon die hilt of his sword, apparently drawing it 
from its scabbard. The gateway, which is lofty 
and of impregnable strength, was defended by four 
portcullises. 

The area enclosed by the walls is in shape an 
irregular oblong, and is of considerable extent. 
It was formerly divided into two courts. The 
masonry in the interior is greatly dilapidated; in 
some places it is a mere heap of ruins. In the 

* How silent and how beautiful they stand, 
Like things of nature! The eternal rocks 
Themselves not firmer. 

Sodthey. 



61 



state-rooms were spacious windows, profusely 
adorned with rich compartments and delicate tra- 
cery, of which few relics are to be seen. 

Perhaps no portion of the castle is more in- 
teresting than the Eagle Tower, a massy structure, 
surmounted by three angular turrets, which have 
a lightness and a grace peculiarly their own. In 
this tower that weak and unhappy prince, Edward 
the Second, was born, on St. Mark's day, the 25th 
of April, 1 284. The view from the summit of the 
Eagle Tower, which may be reached by a close 
winding staircase, comprehends Carnarvon Bay, 
the Menai Straits, and the Isle of Anglesey on the 
one side; and the Snowdonian mountains on the 
other. All who have ever seen it, bear testimony 
to its loveliness. 

The written history of Carnarvon Castle is 
scarcely marked by any memorable events. Dur- 
ing the Parliamentary wars, in the seventeenth 
century, it often changed masters. 

Here it was that the haughty Edward and his 
gentle Eleanor held their court. No guest or 
way-worn pilgrim now knocks at the gate; the 
halls are forsaken; no music strikes upon the dis- 



62 



tant ear; the tournament, the dance, and the revel 
are over; desolation breathes from all around. 
Yes, lonely ruin ! thy morning pride has passed 
away, like a dream that flies and is forgotten ; 
but thou art beautiful — oh, how beautiful — in thy 
wreck of glory ! 

If the traveller turns to the left, at the distance 
of four miles on the road from Beddgelert to 
Carnarvon, he will soon arrive at Drws-y-coed — 
The Door of the Wood — a most romantic pass 
which is not much visited, although it possesses 
many attractions for the antiquary and the man 
of science, and its beauties so wild and so savage 
would supply the landscape painter with the 
finest subjects for his pencil. 

It was at the very entrance of the pass, and 
just where it is narrowest and most shut in, that 
about the year 1832, as a husbandman was turn- 
ing the soil of a little plot of ground, his spade 
struck agains a cistfaen or stone chest, which, on 
being taken out of the earth and examined, was 
found to contain ashes and burnt human bones. 
Soon afterwards, four or five more of these chests 
were discovered, all of them near the same spot 



63 

and at the depth of not more than a foot and a 
half from the surface. They probably enclosed 
the remains of some warlike chiefs who fell cen- 
turies and centuries ago, in the bloody crush of 
battle : for, doubtless, this has often been the 
scene ot desperate strife ; here have often been 
heard the "the warrior's measured tread" the 
clang of arms, the shriek of agony, and the groan 
of death. As the cist faen is too small to have 
admitted a body at full length, it is reasonable to 
suppose that the body was first burnt and that 
the ashes were then deposited in the cist faen. 
The bones were burnt so much as to be most of 
them white on the exterior, but some of them 
were still black and carbonaceous on the outside, 
and many were so within, Csesar informs us 
that it was the custom of the Gauls to burn their 
dead. It had also become a practice with the 
Romans, in imitation of the Greeks, towards the 
end of the republic, and it was almost universal 
under the emperors. The sepulchral mound and 
the funeral urn, at the time of Caesar's invasion, 
were common both to the Romans and to the 
Britons ; and because they were so, it is often 



64 



not easy, when our barrows are opened, to dis- 
tinguish the sepultures of the two nations. In 
the presnt instance, the rude form of the cist 
feini and their locality seem to justify the pre- 
sumption that the relics are of a very early date 
and that they are purely British. They all bear 
so exact a resemblance to each other, that they 
may safely be ascribed to the same age. Future 
researches will perhaps throw more light on this 
very interesting spot. 

In an oblique direction towards Carnarvon, are 
the vestiges of a Roman road, called by the 
Welsh, Ffordd Pawl— The Road of Paulinus. 
This was the celebrated road which passed along 
the edge of Cwellyn* Lake, by Pen y stryd, and 
through Merionethshire. 

On the south s ; de of Drws y coed, may be 
distinctly seen the traces of a still more ancient 
road, Mignedd — The trodden Way — which forms 
a passage to a spacious ledge of table ground in 
the mountains, called Cwm Marchnad — The 



* Cwellyn, pronounced Quelthlin. Hence, conjectures 
Sir William Beetham, Watting ;— the great Watling street 
road. 



65 

Market Hollow — where, according to tradition the 
Britons were accustomed at stated seasons to hold 
a market or fair. In the rude pastoral districts 
of the island, before it could boast of many 
flourishing towns, commodities of every kind 
were brought periodically to fairs, to which the 
people resorted that they might make provision 
for the ensuing year. The display of merchan- 
dize and the concourse of buyers and sellers at 
these principal and almost only marts of domestic 
trading were prodigious^ For that reason they 
were often kept upon open and extensive plains. 
They continued for several days, important pri- 
vileges were attached to them, and that they 
might possess a greater degree of solemnity, they 
were associated with religious festivals. Although 
their utility is now diminished, our history will 
show that they have been among the best means 
not only of promoting commerce, but also of 
making us acquainted with the products, the aris, 
and the institutions of other countries, and of 
extending our benevolence with our knowledge. 

At Drws y coed is a large and valuable Copper 
Mine, which the proprietors are working upon 



66 



scientific principles, with much practical know- 
ledge, and, it is said, to great advantage. 

The first discovery of this hidden wealth was 
owing, we are told, to a singular circumstance. 
The story is, that a hundred years ago, on a fine 
summer's day, a pedlar, fatigued with travelling 
over acclivities and precipices, lay down by the 
path side, at Drws y coed, to rest himself. When 
he was dozing, he heard a loud report like a 
thunder-clap, which astonished him. The sound 
was sharp and soon over. On going to the spot 
from which it appeared to issue, he found that a 
metalliferous substance, with a powerful, sulphur- 
ous smell, had been forced from the heart of the 
mountain, leaving behind its course a hole several 
inches in diameter. He afterwards mentioned 
the fact to some intrepid adventurers, and, from 
that time to this, miners have been employed in 
slowly tracing out, through all its windings and 
irregularities, the course of the vein of ore, and in 
extracting the precious masses which have con- 
stituted the objects of their search. In the result 
we have an example of what zeal and labour, 
under the guidance of intellect, are able to ac- 



67 



^complish : and if ihis be not a land for the odours 
of the spicy East, or for the vine and the olive, 
the myrtle and the orange, we may affirm, and 
affirm with truth, that there are few parts of the 
globe which present a succession of sublimer and 
more interesting objects to the eye, and that there 
are few in which the earth is likely to afford a 
more adequate recompense to the industry of man. 

The noise that raised the pedlar's curiosity, 
we have reason to believe, was occasioned by 
the liberation of some unknown kinds of gas which 
chemical agency had produced in the deep and 
dark recesses of the rock, and which after passing 
from crevice to crevice, had come into contact 
with atmospheric air, and exploded.* 

Here, there is little doubt, we perceive at once 
the origin of both those tremendous visitations, 
earthquakes and volcanoes. It is in countries 
remote from active volcanoes that the effects are 
most widely and powerfully felt. In such, the 
efforts to escape, made by the imprisoned elements 



* ■ nunc hinc, nunc ilatibus illinc 

Eruere inter se certant ; it stridor. 

Virc. JEn. iv. 441. 

G 



68 



sometimes convulse the ground for thousands of 
of square leagues, bringing destruction to the ha- 
bitations of man, and crushing him under the ruin 
of his own frail abode; and when the overwhelm- 
ing force exerted by the subterranean matter rends 
the surface of the earth, chasms are opened which 
in a few seconds often swallow up whole cities, 
with their devoted inhabitants ; and a dreary plain, 
a dismal lake, or a yawniDg gulph remains to point 
out the spot where, but a few hours before, stood 
a flourishing town, swarming with thousands of 
human beings.* 

The occurrence of volcanic phenomena upon a 
smaller scale, is more frequent than has been sus- 
pected. Hence, the will o'the wisps, the corpse 
candles, the "tomb fire's livid gleams," and the 
knockers, which are so common in Wales, Corn- 
wall, and other mining countries, and which the 
great and little vulgar attribute to supernatural 
influence. These and many similar visionary and 

* Scathes not Earth sometimes 
Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes 
Their shrieking cities, and with one last clang 
Of bells for their own ruin, strews them fiat 
As riddled ashes— silent as the grave 1 ? 

Campbell. 



69 



childish errors, seem to be of Runic origin. Through 
the whole of Europe they have, from the remotest 
ages, assumed a substantial form, and been em- 
ployed with much solemnity, and with much 
effect, as the instruments of imposture. Happily, 
they are now yielding to the progress of a better 
day. 

A singularly curious mineral, the carbonate of 
manganese, has lately been discovered in great 
abundance, and of an excellent quality, in the 
Drws y coed mines. One of the forms in which 
it presents itself is that of beautiful crystals with 
a pink tinge. It had previously been found no 
where but in Transylvania. 

The ore of strontian is another mineral which 
has been obtained here. 

About three quarters of a mile beyond Drws y 
coed, is the Vale of Nantlle, which also combines 
in rare association some of the grandest objects 
in nature with marks of the constant and unremit- 
ting efforts of human industry. 

Two fine lakes, at a very small distance from 
each other, give an indescribable richness and 
beauty to the scene. 



70 



Edward the First spent some days near these 
lakes, during the summer of 1284. The place at 
which he resided was called Bala-deulyn — The 
Embouchure of the two Lakes. It is said to 
have been in the possession of the Welsh princes, 
from the time of Owen Gwynedd, who succeeded 
his father in the principality of North Wales' 
A.D. 1137, and was always foremost in the race 
of glory.* Edward issued several edicts from 
Bala-deulyn. 

The Vale of Nantlle abounds with extensive 
slate quarries ; and it would be difficult to esti- 
mate the value of the benefits which they confer 
upon the labouring portion of the community. 
The slates are carried by a rail-road to Carnarvon, 
where they are shipped. 

Somewhat further on, towards the picturesque 
little village of Llanllyfni, is the spot from which 
Wilson took his fine view of Snowdon. Owing 
to the indiscriminate rage for the works of the old 
masters, the poetical loveliness of Wilson's com- 

* Owen's praise demands my song, 
Owen swift and Owen strong. 

Gray. 
See also a Welsh poem in Jones's Relics, Vol. iii. p. 6» 



71 



positions was not felt, until he was far beyond the 
reach of human praise. His whole life was spent 
in poverty, and he died of a broken heart. He 
has been called "the most accomplished land- 
scape painter that this country ever produced." 
lie was a native of the principality. 

Kind too late, 
Relenting Fortune weeps o'er Wilson's fate ; 
Remorseful owns her blindness ; and to fame 
Consigns with sorrow his illustrious name.* 

To the north-east of Beddgelert, Nant Gwy- 
nant — The Vale of Waters — extends for about six 
miles, and may claim to be the most romantic 
of the vallies in this romantic tract of country 
An excellent carriage-road now passes through 
its whole length, forming a communication with 
Capel Curig and the great London and Holyhead 
road on the one hand, and with Llanberis and 
Carnarvon on the other. Slowly will the traveller 
proceed, if he possesses any degree of poetical 
susceptibility, and many will be the pauses that 
he makes ; for at every step there is some object 
calculated to arrest his attention and to inspire 
him with delight., A charm is on the rocks. 
* Shee's Rhymes of Art. 



72 

the woods, and the meadows, on the haunted 
streams and the peaceful lakes. Here Beauty 
pitches her tents before us : here she finds her 
sweetest and happiest shelter. 

A mile up the valley is a steep and lofty rock 
called Dinas Emrys, — The Fort of Ambrosius or 
of Merlin Emrys, — a spot with which are con- 
nected some of the most singular traditions of a 
remote age. 

The history of Britain for two centuries after 
the departure of the Romans is acknowledged on 
all hands to be involved in much obscurity. 
Our ancient writers, however, agree in stating 
that, about the 449th year of the Christian era * 
the Saxons, a warlike, hardy race from the 
north of Germany, came over in great numbers, 
and made their first settlement in the Isle of 
Thanet, which is now separated from the rest of 
Kent by the narrow Stour and another still 
narrower river, but which was then divided from 
the land of Cantwara by a channel in some places 
nearly a mile broad. They were commanded by 

* Carte's Hi«t. of Eng. Vol. I. p. 192. 



73 



liengist and Horsa, both of them sons of a cele- 
brated Saxon chieftain, who- traced his descent 
from Woden, the principal deity of his country. 

Britain was torn asunder by two leading par- 
ties, at the head of one of which was Vortigern, 
a weak, luxurious prince. No sooner had the 
Saxons obtained a firm footing, than they resolved 
to establish themselves in the country, not as de- 
pendant and willing allies, but as absolute masters. 
In a short time, they procured a reinforcement 
of their own tribes, and spread themselves over 
South Britain ; when, under pretence of amicably 
adjusting all points in dispute, Hengist invited 
Vortigern with three hundred and sixty nobles to 
a superb banquet. The scene of this festivity 
was on Salisbury Plaiu, not far from Stonehenge, 
the most magnificent relic of the early worship of 
our ancestors. A temporary wooden building 
was erected for the purpose. The tables were 
spread with all the splendour and profusion that 
Saxon taste was capable of displaying; and the 
guests took their seats in unsuspecting confidence, 
with warmth of heart, full of enthusiasm, full of 
enjoyment, full of gaiety ; but alas ! they were to 



74 

return to their homes no more. The Saxons, who 
had been artfully distributed among them, waited 
for the appointed signal; and at the words, 
" Nimed eure seaxes"* uttered by Hengist, each 
drew the short sword which he had conceal- 
ed under his garments, and plunged it to the 
hilt in the bosom of his neighbour. All the 
British w ? ere slain, except Vortigern, who was 
dragged ignominiously to prison. In its ulterior 
consequences, the massacre led to what is known 
by the somewhat incorrect appellation of the 
Saxon Heptarchy, 

On that part of Salisbury Plain is a succession 
of barrows, many of which have been opened, and 
found to contain entire human skeletons, and 
burnt bones, mixed with fragments of helmets, 
swords and spears. Some writers maintain that 
it was a regular cemetery of the early Britons, 
while others are of opinion that it is only the 
place in which the victims of this merciless act of 
dissimulation and cruelty were buried. 

Vortigern was looked upon by his countrymen 
with the most implacable and deadly hatred, as 
* Take your seaxes, or short swords." 



15 



<Iie author of all their wrongs. They told him 
that although he had been fortunate enough 
in one instance to escape, his hours were num- 
bered, — that as he moved along, his hopes would 
be ever and anon rising and setting in the horizon, 
that he would wear out the remainder of his 
fleeting span in perplexity, and at length sink 
beneath his fate in the blackest dishonour. There 
are some annalists who would persuade us that the 
earth swallowed him up, and some that he was 
consumed by a sulphurous flame from heaven, 
amidst the indignation, the yells, and the shrieks 
of thousands and thousands of spectators. This 
severity, they will have it, was the bitter, and not 
undeserved retribution of his crimes. 

His own dreams and visions imparted glimpses 
of a happier lot ; but he scarcely knew whether 
he was or was not in a waking world. He feared 
that he was played upon by an evil demon, or 
that all might be the working of his own fantastic 
and distorted passions. The received tradition 
is, that instead of giving way to immediate and 
total despondency, he retired to Nant Gwynant, 
at the foot of Snowdon, and sent for Merlin, a 



76 



potent magician, whom he employed to cast his 
horoscope, and who became his bard and coun- 
sellor. After much deliberation Vortigern built a 
fortress, which he vainly deemed to be impreg- 
nable, and which he at last bestowed on the 
soothsayer. 

Many a tale has been told, and is still prevalent, 
about the exploits of Merlin, and did we but 
reflect for a moment on the ignorance of the 
period in which he lived, and on the slender 
materials required by Superstition as the ground- 
work of her dark and mysterious stories, we should 
cease to wonder. Even in that early stage of 
society, the Britons possessed a glowing and 
fervent imagination. They peopled the subter- 
ranean caverns, the woods, the rivers, and the 
mountains, with spirits, elves, giants, and dragons, 
and took an enthusiastic delight in song and 
poetry. Merlin is said to have devoted himself 
to the sciences from his youth, and to have been 
an alchemist, a mathematician, an astrologer, and 
a minstrel of the highest order. The apparatus 
of his laboratory, his rude but curious philoso- 
phical instruments, if philosophical we may term 



77 



them, his wizard wand, his complicated diagrams, 
his lonely lamp, the eastern costume worn by 
persons of his profession, and the appearance of 
the venerable sage as he sate, night by night, on 
the roof of his house, gazing at the firmament, 
watching the clouds and conversing with the 
stars, were all amply sufficient to impress the 
vulgar with awe, and to procure him eager atten- 
tion, and a name that went, like that of a divinity, 
to the ends of the earth. 

There is a British legend which represents him 
as constructing a splendid magical grotto upon 
the summit of a mountain, for his mistress, whom 
the was accustomed to call the White Serpent, 
and who treacherously converted it into his tomb- 
Spenser in his " Faery Queen " — a poem in which 
"the heaven and earth do make one imagery" — 
gives a fine description of it, confirmed by Cam- 
den in its essential features. According to him, 
it was formed at the ancient Maridunum:* 

" that is by chaunge of name 

Cayr-Merddin called." 
" There the wise Merlin whylome wont they say 
To make his wonne, low underneath the ground, 
By a deep delve, far from the view of day, 
That of no living wight he might be found 
When so he counsell'd with his sprights encompast 
round - " 

* Carmarthen. 



In the manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, the place of Merlin's sepulture is spoken 
of as a dungeon, rather than as a tomb, where he 
still remains, and where his voice is still heard. 
Spenser also mentions the exquisitely mournful 
sounds which appear to issue from the cave. 
This coincides with the account in the old ver- 
sion of "La Morte Arthur," by Sir Thomas 
Maleor: — "And so, upon a time it happened, that 
Merlin shewed to be in a rocke, where was a 
great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, which 
went under a stone, so by her craft and working, 
she made Merlin go under that stone, to let him 
wit of the marvailes there. But she wrought so 
for him, that he never came out for all the craft 
that he could doe." 

It is impossible to arrive at any certainty, in 
reference to the particular events of a period, the 
only accounts of which are vague, shadowy, and 
confused. Beyond all doubt, the history of Mer- 
in has been enveloped in wild traditions, which 
have scarcely any foundation in truth; but they 
have taken such a firm hold on the popular mind, 
and have been identified with so much poetry, 
that it is neither an easy nor a pleasant task to 



79 

dissipate the fanciful illusion. Notwithstanding 
this, of late years, learned commentators on the 
arts of sorcery and divination, have even raised a 
suspicion as to Merlin's individuality. They have 
been heartless enough to talk and write of him as 
if he were not a real personage, but a hero belong- 
ing to the beautiful world of romance. 

With respect to Vortigem, it is probable that 
after finding a temporary asylum at Dinas Emrys, 
he betook himself to Nant y Gwytheryn — Vorti- 
gerns Valley, — as it is now called, a dark cavity 
in the mountains, near Nevin, at the southern 
extremity of the Snowdonian range, where he 
spent the last days of his chequered and fearful 
life. 

In the immediate neighbourhood of Dinas 
Emrys, is Llyn Dinas, — The Pool of the Fort, — 
a large and beautiful sheet of water, stored with 
abundance of excellent trout. 

Two miles beyond, Cwm Llan, a most deli- 
cious glen, a fairy wilderness, suddenly opens to 
the left, where Snowdon, the great monarch o 
the scene, flings his broad shadow across tl 
vale. He is surrounded by hills on hills, whk 



80 



rise to a stupendous height, and are only less 
mighty and less glorious than himself. 

Within a short distance, there is another very 
magnificent lake, Llyn Gwynant, beyond which 
the valley changes its name into Cwm Dyli. 

To the left of the valley is a cataract, Rhaidr 
Cwm Dyli, formed by a stream which issues from 
Llyn Llydaw. It consists of five distinct and 
successive cascades, dashing and tumbling down 
over the rocks, at least two hundred and fifty 
feet. In some parts of its descent a sight of the 
water is caught only by glimpses through the 
trees that shade it and the underwood that fringes 
its margin; — a circumstance which contributes 
much to the picturesque and pleasing effect of the 
scene. It deserves to be visited oftener than it is. 

About a mile and a half to the west of Cwm 
Dyli is Llyn Llydaw, an elevated mountain lake 
that expands itself amidst a turbulent chaos of 
rugged and cloud-capt precipices. 

A little more than a mile of uninterrupted 
sublimity and interest brings the traveller to Pen 
y Gwrhyd, — The Top of the Ascent, — which is 
crossed by the Carnarvon and Capel Curig road. 



On shaping his course to the left, he ap- 
proaches a new wonder; and assuredly it is 
impossible for him to behold it without a strange 
delight, — without a feeling similar to that which 
orced from the astonished Romans their well 
known exclamation, "Ecce Tiber ! Ecce Campus 
Martius !" or which led one of the most accom- 
plished of our living poets to ask himself, 

Am I in Italy 1 Is this the Mincius 1 
Are these the distant turrets of Verona 1* 

The pass of Llanberis, winds down a chasm 
of between three and four miles in length. It is 
extremely steep and at some points not more than 
a hundred and sixty feet in breadth. On entering 
it, we find our attention at first wholly engaged 
by the grandeur of those vast, unchanged and 
unchangeable heights, and next by the dreariness 
and desolation which surround us* and which are 
almost too much for our faculties to bear. It is 
not until we have advanced a little distance that 
we feel in its complete power the enchantment 

* Rogers. 

f Here nature seems to sit alone 
Majestic on a craggy throne. 

Warton's Ode to Fancy, 



82 



thrown over a scene so awful. We behold rocks 
towering above rocks in capricious groups, higher 
and yet higher, as if it were impossible to pene- 
trate beyond ; most of them black and terrific ; 
others of a somewhat less savage aspect; but 
none exhibiting the slightest vestiges of human 
industry. The ruggedness of the dark grey pre- 
cipices is scarcely covered by a single shrub or a 
single blade of herbage; only here and thereat 
their base has the plough left any trace of its 
furrows. Whilst all is majestic, all, all is soli- 
tary. A perpetual unbroken sabbath stillness 
reigns through the vast profound, except that 
at intervals, the piercing cry of the kite or the 
hawk, the hoarse and discordant note of the raver 
or the wild minstrelsy of the stream is heard. In 
this lonely region, a sudden burst of thunder, as 
it echoes and re-echoes, again and again, and 
again, amidst the countless multitude of hills has 
a magnificent and fine effect : nothing can b( 
more solemn or more impressive* 

The valley is watered by numerous rills whicl 

* The rocks and hills 
Take up the awful sound, and o'er the lake 
Roll its slow echoes.— Southey. 



83 

sparkle from the mountain tops and down the 
mountain sides, like threads of silver; and huge 
uncouth masses of stone dislodged from the cliffs 
lie either heaped one upon another, or scattered 
upon the ground far and wide in every direction. 
Before the opening of the new line of road from 
Capel Curig to Carnarvon, the traveller had to 
pick his steps as he could, with difficulty and 
suspicion, the path being irregular and rough and 
full of quagmires. There cannot be a doubt that 
the whole region has been, at some period or 
other, violently shaken by one of those great 
catastrophes of nature, the memorials of which are 
so strongly imprinted on the surface of the globe ; 
and it is easy for the observer to follow the lines 
which connected the opposite mountains with 
each other, and to convince himself that they 
formed but one uninterrupted country. 

Not far from the termination of this extraordi- 
nary defile, is the church of Llanberis, a small 
cruciform structure, destitute of external orna- 
ment and in perfect accordance with the deep 
quietness of the spot on which it stands. It is 
dedicated to St. Peris, a cardinal of Rome, and 



84 



was probably built in the sixth or seventh cen- 
tury. 

There is a porch at the entrance, as is the case 
with almost every ancient country church in 
Great Britain. Formerly a part of the offices of 
baptism and of marriage was pei formed in these 
porches : their use now is to afford a resting place 
and a shelter to the villagers who assemble in the 
church-yard, awaiting the time for divine service 
to begin. 

The font is large enough to admit of an infant's 
being completely immersed, according to early 
usage in the established church, whenever it was 
certified that the child " might well endure it." 

That this sanctuary should have been erected 
at so dark a 'period of our history, in a lonely 
ravine, between mountains that appear like walls, 
is a circumstance eminently calculated to inspire 
the mind with a solemn and grateful recognition 
of the unostentatious triumphs of the gospel. 
Yes, it is the gospel, and the gospel alone which 
supplies to the anxious way worn pilgrim, a 
guiding light far steadier and brighter than philo- 
sophy with all its boastings can give, and which 



85 



while it assures us that the grave is not the last 
home of man, teaches us to build up our hap- 
piness by a preparation for eternity. 

May the writer hope to be excused if he offers 
a passing tribute to the memory of the very 
worthy and excellent individual, the Rev, Peter 
Bayley Williams, who led the worship of the 
congregation in this simple edifice during the 
long term of forty four years, trudging for miles, 
through dirty roads* to the scene of his labours, 
penetrating the wildest recesses of the vallies and 
mountains, going from house to house, from bed- 
side to bed-side, comforting, strengthening, en- 
lightening the people of his charge, loving them 
all, and by all beloved. Those who were best 
acquainted with him concur in saying that they 
have seldom known or pictured to themselves a 
man more single hearted, more confiding, open 
and upright, a pastor more conscientiously faithful, 
more actively benevolent, more truly kind. He 
was the friend, the compassionate, generous 
friend, not only of all who were good, but of all 

* This is particularly true of the earlier part of Mr. 
Williams's ministry at Llanberis, before the turnpike- 
road was opened. 






86 

who were in poverty, and of all whom the hand 
of God had touched. His task is now accom- 
plished, his work is finished, and his pure spirit 
is gone to its reward in the everlasting world of 
bliss. Such a character of humility and watch- 
fulness reminds us of the Herberts and the Gil- 
pins of a former day.* 

The vale of Llanberis is from one end to the 
other, exceedingly picturesque and striking. It 
is renowned for it&two lakes, which are very beau- 
tiful. In truth, they are of a higher nature than 
beautiful; inasmuch as they lie in an amphitheatre 
of stupendous mountains and precipices, that have 
ever been the dwellings of the tempest and that 
were for ages the empire of the eagle. 

The upper lake is about a mile in length, and 
rather less than half a mile in breadth. Some 
parts of it are no less than a hundred and forty 
yards in depth. The lower lake is considerably 
longer, but it is not so broad or so deep. Between 



* Mr. Williamsrclosed his eyes in peace at Llanrug, 
near Carnarvon, on the l'2th of November, 1836, in the 
72nd year of his age. He was the younger son of the 
Rev. Peter Williams, author of Annotations on the Bible, 
a work which still maintains a very high degree of popu- 
larity, among all classes in Wales. 



87 

them is a narrow slip of land, through which a 
stream runs from one into the other. The 
mountains at the eastern extremity of the upper 
lake are the most elevated, as well as the most 
fantastic in their outline. Snowdon, as if in the 
pride of conscious grandeur, towers majestically 
above all the rest. 

Persons who have been much in this country 
need not to be informed that the appearance of 
the lakes is variable, greatly dependent on the 
atmosphere and the sunshine. It is by no means 
easy to convey to a stranger an adequate idea of 
the different impressions, which, as circumstances 
change, they are calculated to make. To behold 
them under the influence of a storm, in the most 
dreadful agitation, their surface covered with 
foam, and their billows resembling the swellings 
of the ocean,* may be desired by those who are 
fond of looking on nature in all the variety of 
sublime disorder ; but it is only during a perfect 
calm, when the orb of day showers its radiance 



* Anne lacus tantos? te, Lari maxime ; teque 
Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino? 

Virg. Georg. ii. 159. 



88 



upon them, that their full glory is displayed* 
The colouring of the clouds, the deep shadows of 
the mountains, and the images of the overhanging 
rocks are then distinctly reflected on the bright and 
glassy waters. The poet's description appears 
to be realized, though all the objects are not exactly 
the same : — 

" The weather-tinted rock or tower, 
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower; 
So pure, so fair, the mirror gave, 
As if there lay beneath the wave, 
Secure from trouble, toil, and care, 
A world, than earthly world more fair." 

On an insulated rocky point, at the junction of 
the two lakes, stands the old tower cf Dolbadarn 
Castle, which is seen along the valley for a great 
distance. Its inner diameter is twenty-six feet ; 
its height seventy-seven. It derived its name, 
Castell Dolbadarn — The Castle of Padarn's Mea- 
dow, — from the circumstance of its being situated 
near the spot to which Padarn, a holy anchorite, 
withdrew, that he might spend his last days in 
penitence and prayer. The early history of the 



innubilus aether 



lntegit, et large diffuso lumine ridet. 

Lucretius, Lib. III. 
* "A thousand shadows of a thousand hues." 



89 



castle is involved in doubt. It is not even ascer- 
tained at what time, or by whom it was erected. 
There is reason to believe that it is of British 
origin, and that it was built to command the prin- 
cipal entrance into the interior of the Snowdonian 
territory .* Occasionally too it was used as a state 
prison. Now, it has little interest, except for its 
picturesque beauty, and as reminding us but too 
plainly of the despotism which the ancient British 
chieftains were accustomed to exercise over their 
vassals. Loose stones and rank weeds fill its 
court, and its walls are crumbling to the earth 
and mingling dust with dust. It has long been 
in ruins. Leland says, that in his time it was " a 
piece of a tovver."f The wonder is, that although 
the breath of the tempest and the rage of the 
battle have so frequently passed over it, the ma- 
sonry should have been compact enough to hold 
together during so many ages. Towards the close 
of the thirteenth century, it was esteemed the 



* Rowlands's Mona Antiqua, p. 149. 

t " Dolbadarn is on a rock betwixt two linnys. There 
is yet a pece of a toure, where Owen Gough, brother to 
Lluelin, last prince, was yn prison."— Leland's Itin. 
"' : V. t>. 44. 



90 



most important fortress in all North Wales. Carte 
describes it, as " seated in the midst of an im- 
passable morass, inaccessible but by a single 
causeway, and to be approached only through the 
steep and rugged defile of the mountains."* 

In the tower of Dolbadarn Castle, Owen Goch, 
was confined by his brother Llewelyn ap Griffith, 
the last of the Welsh princes, on a charge of having 
attempted to incite the people to revolt; and here 
his life lingered on for upwards of twenty-three 
years. 



■He was acquainted with sad misery 



As the tamed galley-slave is with his oar."t 

From the chinks which admitted the light into his 
prison, his gloomy and narrow world, his living 
grave, the poor captive could look out upon the all 
majestic face of nature, upon the mountains that rose 
in their endless variety of beautiful forms before 
him, and upon the joyous and smiling lakes that lay 
extended at his feet ; and as he beheld them, what 
must have been his meditations, what his feelings ! 
He was more or less than man, if the spectacle 



* Carte's History of England, Vol. 11. p. 191. 
t Webster's Duchess of Malfy. 



91 

did not create a desire of liberty, while he felt 
the utter hopelessness of attaining it. But the 
sufferings that he underwent appear to have nei- 
ther broken nor subdued his spirit. Though fallen 
never to rise again, he wore his bonds with a 
calm and cheerful brow. Yes, it is surprising 
to think how the mind can shape itself to its own 
circumstances, and how much habit is concerned 
in making us what we are. There are still extant 
some pathetic Welsh poems, which were ad- 
dressed to this victim of oppression, during his 
imprisonment, and in which he is spoken of as 
*' the mild, the brave, the lion-hearted Owen, the 
pride, the delight, the idol of his countrymen."* 

On some parts of the lower lake, and in the 
adjacent inundated meadows by the side of the 
road to Carnarvon, is to be seen in great profusion 
the white water lily, the nymphaa alba of Linnaeus, 
which has been justly called the most magnificent 
of our native flowers. It expands its blossoms 
in the sunshine and in the middle of the day, 
and closes them towards the evening, when it either 

* A Welsh Ode— Awdl— on his imprisonment, composed 
by Howel Voel ap Griffri ap Pwyll Gwyddel, may be 
found in the Myvyrian Archaiology. 



92 



reclines on the surface of the water or sinks beneath 
it.* Sir James Smith says, that as the sinking of 
the flower under water had been denied or doubted, 
he was careful to verify it. The same circum- 
stance has been recorded of the Egyptian lotus 
from the remotest antiquity. 

The slate quarry belonging to Thomas Assheton 
Smith, Esq., of Vaynol, is one of the greatest 
curiosities in the neighbourhood. The principal 
portion of it bears the name of Clogwyn y Gig- 
fran — The Eaven Rock. It is situated in the 
declivity of a mountain, on the north side of the 
upper lake. 

The solid masses of slate which are taken from 
this quarry are sometimes eighty, and sometimes 
ninety, or even a hundred feet high. Each mass 
is split into lamina, varying in thickness according 
to the purposes to which they are to be applied. 
Some of them are prepared for grave stones, chim- 

* " The water-lily, in the midst of waters, lifts tip its 
broad leaves and expands its petals at the first pattering 
of the shower, and rejoices in the rain with a quicker 
sympathy than the parched shrub in the sandy desert." — 
Coleridge. 

" The water-lily to the light 

Her chalice rears of silver bright." 

Sir Walter Scott. 



93 



ney-pieees, cisterns, floors, and writing slates; 
but by far the greater part for the covering of 
houses. The rude slates are reduced to shape 
and size by a small-edged tool ; the slate being 
first laid upon the edge of an iron plate fixed in 
an upright position. They are arranged by the 
dresser, as they pass from his hand, according to 
their respective sizes — queens, duchesses, coun- 
tesses, and ladies. These dignified titles were 
conferred upon them by the late Judge Leicester, 
of the North Wales Circuit. 

The quarryman's employment requires much 
caution, and the idea of the dangers that attend 
it, especially in so wild and majestic a region, pro- 
duces an extraordinary effect, and imparts to the 
scene a character of indescribable interest. The 
process that appears to be the most hazardous, 
and that is calculated beyond all others to alarm 
the looker-on — "half pleased and half afraid" — is 
the frequent blasting of the slate rock. Sheltering 
huts are erected here and there throughout the 
quarry, though, strange as it may seem, they are 
but little used by the workmen. 

Formerly the slates were conveyed to Port 



94 



Dinorwic on the Menai Straits, a distance of 
eight miles, at an enormous expense, in carts 
drawn by horses. Some years ago, a railway was 
laid down ; and they are now carried in wag- 
gons, each holding about a ton. Several of these 
waggons are fastened to each other., and the whole 
train is drawn by two or three horses with perfect 
ease. On an average upwards of a thousand tons 
are every week sent from the quarry to Port Din- 
orwic, for the purpose of being shipped. 

It is impossible to visit the quarries without 
admiring the public spirit of the proprietor, and 
the well-directed and dauntless activity of the 
workmen. 

On the mountains have risen up, asunder some 
mighty magician's wand, a number of neat cot- 
tages with plots of ground attached to them, from 
one acre to five acres in extent. For this measure, 
if for nothing besides, Mr. Smith may be justly 
termed a philanthropist, and a patriot. It shows 
that he is not indifferent to the condition of his 
workmen, that he makes their well being his 
care ; and at the same time that he has formed 
them to a relish for the peace and repose of home, 



and for domestic and social comforts, which they 
otherwise might never have known, he has "en- 
couraged to a luxuriant bounty " the soil, which 
but for him, would have been barren and pro- 
fitless. 

There are several other slate quarries and 
several copper mines at Llanberis. 

About a mile and a half from Dolbadarn Castle, 
a little to the left of the road to Carnarvon is Ty 
du — The Black House, — once both the property 
and the residence of Dr. Godfrey Goodman, who 
was Bishop of Gloucester, in the reign of Charles 
the First * 

The prelate's biographers represent him to have 
been studious and learned; at the same time, it 
is evident, that great eccentricity marked his cha- 
racter. During the protectorate, he was stripped 
of his ecclesiastical preferments by the " long and 
wicked parliament," as he terms it. Notwith- 
standing this, he published a warm and fulsome 
panygeric on Cromwell.f His will is a singular 

* He was consecrated March 6th, 1624. 

t Ardente bello civili, cum fratribus Reverendissimi 
pariter vexatus et spoliatus, Cromwelli, turn dominant!? 
misericordiam libello edito frustra blanditiis servilibus 
petivit.— Godwin de Pr.es ol., p. 554. 



96 

document. " I here profess," says he, " that as I 
have lived, so I die, most constant in all the 
articles of the Christian faith, and in all the 
doctrines of God's holy Catholic and Apostolic 
Church, whereof I do acknowledge the Church 
of Rome to be the mother church; and [ do 
verily believe that no other church hath any 
salvation in it, but only as far as it concurs with 
the faith of the Church of Rome." He left the 
rents of Ty du, and of another estate in Carnar- 
vonshire, amounting together to forty pounds per 
annum, to feoffees in trust for the following pur- 
poses : five pounds to be spent at their meeting 
upon some day of the Michaelmas Assizes; 
fifteen pounds to be employed in placing out two 
boys as apprentices, provided they were not 
bound within the principality of Wales, where 
there was no trade in full perfection; and the re- 
maining fifteen pounds to be given to two gentle- 
men who should undertake to travel and to live 
within the compass of two years, two months in 
Germany, two months in Italy, two months in 
France, and two month s in Spain. This whim- 
sical appropriation was set aside several years 



97 



ago by the Court of Chancery, and the rents, 
which have considerably improved, are now de- 
voted to charitable uses in Ruthin, 

Dr. Goodman died January the 19th, 1655, 
and was buried according to his own request near 
the font in St. Margaret's church, Westminster. 
" Humbly thanking God for his baptism," he 
desired that his executors should give the sum of 
forty shillings towards the adorning of the font, 
either by way of painting or otherwise, as the 
churchwardens should think fit. 

Haifa mile to the south of Dolbadarn castle, 
at the end of a deep glen, is a cataract, Ceunant 
Mawr, — The Fall of the great Chasm. The 
water, where it is first seen, gushes out of a fissure 
in the rock. From its agitation among the crags, 
during its course of about sixty feet, it is con- 
verted into a sheet of white and brilliant foam, 
which, after losing itself, as it were, for a moment, 
in the abyss, hurries on through a rocky channel 
into the lake. This cascade, so remote from the 
busy, bustling scenes of life, has excited general 
admiration. 



98 



Such are the features of these vast realms of 
magnificence and splendour. And surely a 
spectacle so sublime is calculated to make the 
most giddy thoughtful. Whilst it completely 
absorbs the imagination, it recalls the mind to its 
proper tone, and brings home to our bosoms a 
sense of our own littleness, a deep and affecting 
conviction that we are but worms. We are dis- 
posed to wonder that we are not overlooked and 
neglected amidst the grandeur and variety that 
are on every side of us ; and passing upward 
from the majesty of nature to the majesty of 
nature's Architect, we exclaim, almost with a 
feeling of despondency, " Lord ! what is man 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
that thou shouldest deign to visit him !" 



NOTES 



Page 1, line 5 : "It can boast of an inn." 

The inn has its album, the contents of which are, 

as might be expected, very miscellaneous. A specimen 

may amuse the reader. 

GOAT HOTEL, BEDDGELERT. 
" Patria mea petra." 

MOTTO OF THE INN. 

The rock thy country, GoaT ! —Why then thy fare 
(I mean thine own) is scant, methinks, and bare! 
Still, hospitable Goat ! not so the guest 
Thou treatest, but to him dost give the best. 
Choice beds, fair charge, kind welcome and good cheer, 
Who are content with these, may find them here. 
Friend Goat ! I like thy pasture MUCH ; and when 
The fates permit, shall gladly come again. 

Phil^egus, August 1839. 
I 



100 

"Fool that I was to leave a delightful home, polished 
friends, and a cultivated country, to travel many hun- 
dred miles to see a rude people, Darren rocks, and wild 
wastes.— July, 1838." 

" Yes, friend, a fool you were in Wales to roam, 
Nor less a fool before you left your home. 
Him who was born a fool, whom all despise 
Not Cambria's self can please or render wise," 

" But to the cultivated eye of taste, 

No rock is barren, and no wild is waste." 



DISTANCES FROM BEDDGELERT. 

MILES. 

ToTre'Madoc 7 

To Tan-y-bwlch 10 

To Capel Curig 12 

To Festiniog 13 

To Carnarvon 13 

To Llauberis 14 

To Harlech 20 

To Dolgelley 28 

To Barmouth 30 

The mail coach, running every day between Car- 
narvon and Barmouth, passes through Beddgelert. 

There is a post-office at the inn. 



101 



Page 5, line 21 : "A hearth that is sanctified by 
religion." 

The Calvinistic Methodists constitute the prevailing 
sect in North Wales. Their zeal in religious duties 
and in the religious instruction of their children at- 
tracts attention every where, and entitles them to great 
respect. The following letter will give the reader 
some idea of their habits as a body of Christian pro- 
fessors. 

Carnarvon, September 13, 1833. 
My dear Sir, 

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and 
Thursday, and particularly on Thursday, in this week, 
the streets of Carnarvon were, at intervals, completely 
thronged with men and women of respectable appear- 
ance, who visited the town from all quarters, and 
many of them from a distance of ten, twenty, thirty 
and forty miles, to be present at the Annual Associa- 
tion of Calvinistic Methodists, by far the largest and 
most flourishing sect in the northern counties of Wales. 
For several days before, the wind had been boisterous, 
and the rain had come down in torrents ; but during 
Wednesday and Thursday, the sky was cloudless and 
serene : and this circumstance must have contributed 
not a little to the pleasure of those who attended the 
meeting. In the afternoon of Wednesday, and 
throughout the whole of Thursday, with short inter- 
missions, there were religious services in a spacious 



102 

field, on a beautiful acclivity, at the foot of Twt- 

hiii.* 

Nearly all the ministers in the connexion were 
present. It was easy to discern among them their 
aged but still laborious " father in the gospel," the 
Rev. John Elias. This worthy man, possessing great 
natural strength of mind, has made himself familiarly 
acquainted with the wiudings and intricacies of the 
human heart, and is able to exhibit what he conceives 
to be the doctrines and requirements of religion with 
a clearness an 1 an energy that are all his own. Who- 
ever has once seen him in the pulpit, though he may 
not have comprehended the meaning of a single word 
that fell from his lips, will not soon forget him. His 
manner is distinguished by a rare union of artlessness, 
dignity and grace : and his addresses are always heard 
with ati anxiety as deep and as untiring as if he spoke 
under the influence of a prophet's or an apostle's in- 
spiration. So popular is he throughout Wales, that 
were it announced in any considerable town, even at 
midnight, that he was about to preach, he would, 
within half and hour, have a thousand hearers. It is 
u o uncommon thing, when he preaches on a week-day 
whether in the morning, at noon, or in the evening, 
for the shutters and doors of shops to be closed, the 
masters, and their wives, children and servants, 
having all left their ordinary occupations, and betaken 

* A commanding eminence, at the North-eastern ap- 
proach to Carnarvon. 



103 



themselves to chapel. Mr. Elias's whole soul is in his 
work ; and he is said to have heen the honoured in- 
strument of " turning many to righteousness." But 
I must remember that I sat down to furnish you with 
brief notices of a public meeting, and not to sketch 
the character of an individual. 

The congregations in the open air, on Wednesday, 
and Thursday, frequently consisted of from twelve to 
thirteen thousand persons, all conducting themselves 
with perfect decorum, and apparently joining in the 
worship, and listening to the discourses of the several 
preachers with the most solemn interest. The pulpit, 
if such it must be called, was a caravan, having a 
raised covering of sail-cloth and an opening in front, 
where a quarto Bible and a hymn-book were placed 
upon a neat little desk. Its situation was such, to- 
wards the lower side of the field, that the speaker was 
distinctly visible from nearly every point. A sabbath- 
stillness pervaded the amazing crowd ; for all seemed 
to feel that they had a personal concern in the occasion 
which had brought them together. Here and there 
might be observed an attentive auditor, more technical 
and precise, perhaps, but not more earnest, than those 
around him, with a small Bible in his hand, the leaves 
of which he occasionally turned over, to search out 
and verify the quotations of the minister. The natural 
scenery that presents itself from the field embraces the 
mighty Snowdonian range of mountains, "so shadowy, 
so sublime ;" and there was in this and in al>~ 
every other eoncomitant a charm that gave t' 



104 



of the solemnity, and to the psalmody above all the 
rest, an indescribable effect. On such a spot, verse 
after verse, as sung out by such a multitude of voices, 
now soft and plaintive, now louder and louder yet, and 
at last dying away in distant echoes, — 

" The strain returning, and still, still returning, 
Oh, it was sad as sweet, and, ere it closed, 
Came like a dirge. "t 

No man, I think, who is not lost to the nobler emo- 
tions of the heart, could stand amidst the vast 
assembly, and contemplate what was passing, without 
a religious awe. Even to minds ignorant of the 
language in which the services were conducted, the 
thrilling truth could not fail to occur, that in a few 
short years every one present, the best, the happiest, 
the youngest, will have vanished from the earth, and 
that " as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all 
be made alive." Indeed, there is nothing in language 
that can convey to those who were not eye-witnesses 
of the spectacle an adequate conception of its grandeur 

At night, there were crowded meetings for prayer 
and exhortation, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thurs- 
day, at the houses of the leading members of the 
society in different parts of the town. 

Many, there cannot be a doubt, returned from this 
anniversary to their respective homes with improved 
resolutions and with brighter hopes ; and oh ! that the 
day may be drawing near when the God of love shall 
shew them, all the glorious wonders of his name, and 

t Rogers's Italy. 



105 

open their believing hearts to the full influences of the 
pure truth as it is in Jesus ! 

The following is the order of the public services. 
It may well surprise the reader who has never visited 
the Principality, especially when he is told that not a 
single discourse occupied less than an hour, and that 
the length of the prayers was in proportion. 

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, FOUR O'CLOCK. 

Prayer. — Rev. D. Davies, Tregolwyn. 
Sermons. — Revs. J. Jones, Ruthin, Heb. x. 12. 

D. Roberts, Swansea, Ezek. xi. 19, 20. 

THURDAY MORNING, SIX O'COCK. 

Prayer. — Rev. F. Evans, Machynlleth. 
Sermons. — Revs. D. Williams, Trevecca, Isa. liu. 10. 
D. Hughes, Nantgaredig, Acts xxvi. 20 . 

TEN O'CLOCK. 

Preyer. — Rev. R. Humphreys, Dyffryn. 
Sermons. — Revs. E. Richard, Tregaron, Isa xxviii. 16. 
J. Elias, Llangefni, James i. 21. 

AFTERNOON, TWO O'CLOCK. 

Prayer. — Rev. J. Edwards, Berthengron. 
Sermons. — Revs. E. Harries, Brecon, Isa. xl. 6— 8. 

W. Morris, South Wales, Psa. cvii. 7. 

SIX O'CLOCK. 

Prayer, — Rev. E. Richards, Tregaron. 



106 

Sermons. — Revs. R. Havard, Brecon, Eph. i. 5. 
R. Jones, Bala, Sam. iii. 24. 

FRIDAY MORNING, SIX O'CLOCK. 

Prayer. — Rev. E. Price, Oswestry. 
Sermons. — Revs. E. Griffith, Montgomery, Luke xiii. 6. 
R. Roberts, Denbigh, Acts iii. 19. 

Private meetings were holden in the spacious Pen- 
yi-allt chapel, on Wednesday, at ten o'clock in the 
morning, and at two o'clock in the afternoon, and on 
Thursday at nine o'clock in the morning. These 
meetings were numerously attended by ministers and 
elders. Several topics of great importance to the 
Society were brought under consideration, and treated 
it is said, with ability, and in a truly Christian spirit. 
All who were present received comfort and edification, 
and it was their fervent prayer that the same happy 
influence might diffuse itself through all the churches 
in the connexion. 

I received an obliging note from one of the elders, 
of course a Welshman, whom I had requested to 
favour me with a list of the preachers, It contains a 
paragraph which I shall transcribe word for word, and 
which is extremely national and characteristic : — 

" The inhabitants of Carnarvon, the different deno- 
minations of Christians without exceptions, have been 
kind indeed on this momentous and interesting oc- 
casion. The public houses were conducted with such 
consistency and regularity that a stranger could not 



107 



distinguish them from private ones, except because 
they had signs. Setting aside religious considerations 
it adds much to the character of our countrymen, that 
when such dense multitudes of them meet together, they 
behave themselves with such order and propriety. 
May the gospel of a truth be the power of God with 
them!" J. H. B. 

Page 7, line 1 : " The grave of Kelert." 

The classical reader will call to mind the dog of 
Ulysses, which crawled to meet his long-lost master, 
looked up, and died at his feet. 

The attachment of Lord Byron to his dog Boat- 
swain, was not the least extraordinary characteristic 
of that dark-bosomed child of genius. The poor 
animal died in a state of madness ; and at the com- 
mencement of the disorder, so little aware was Lord 
Byron of its nature, that he more than once with his 
bare hand wiped away the slaver from the dog's lips. 
The monument over his grave is still a conspicuous 
object in the gardens of Nevvstead. 

Pope also had a favourite dog. He said with great 
bitterness, " Histories are more full of examples of 
the fidelity of dogs than of friends." Hume., in 
speaking of Rosseau, in his Private Correspondence, 
observes, " She^ (Therese) governs him as absolutely 
as a man does a child. In her absence, his dog has 
acquired that ascendant. His affection for that 
creature is beyond all expression or conception." 
Sir Walter Scott's beautiful stag-hound, Maida, his 
old friend and comrade," -will not soon be forgotten. 



108 

—See Moore's Life of Byron, Vol. L p. 223, and 
Lockhart's Life of Scott, Vol. V. p. 90. 

The following ballad by the Hon. W. R. Spencer , 
on Llewelyn's rashness, is much admired. 

THE GREYHOUND'S GRAVE. 

The spearman heard the bugle sound, 

And cheerly smiled the morn ; 
And many a brach, and many a hound, 

Attend Llewelyn's horn. 

And still he blew a louder blast, 

And gave a louder cheer ; 
" Come, Gelert, why art thou the last 

Llewelyn's horn to hear ? 

" Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam 

The flower of all his race ; 
So true, so brave : a lamb at home ; 

A lion in the chase." 

'Twas only at Llewelyn's board, 

The faithful Gelert fed ; 
He watch'd, he serv'd, he cheer'd his lord, 

And centinel'd his bed. 

In sooth, he was a peerless hound, 

The gift of royal John : 
Bui now no Gelert could be found, 

And all the chase rode on. 



109 

And now, as over rocks and dells 

The gallant chidings rise, 
All Snowdon's craggy chaos yells, 

With many mingled cries. 

That day Llewelyn little loved 

The chase of hart or hare, 
And scant and small the booty proved, 

For Gelert was not there. 

Unpleased, Llewelyn homeward hied, 

When near the royal seat, 
His truant Gelert he espied, 

Bounding his lord to greet. 

But when he gain'd his castle door, 

Aghast the chieftain stood ; 
The hound was smear'd with gouts of gore, 

His lips and fangs ran blood ! 

Llewelyn gazed with wild surprise, 

Unused such looks to meet ; 
His favourite check'd his joyful guise, 

And crouch'd and lick'd his feet. 

Onward in haste Llewelyn past, 

And on went Gelert too : 
And still where'er his eyes he cast, 

Fresh blood-gouts shock'd his view. 



110 

O'ertum'd his infant's bed he found. 
The blood -stain'd covert rent ; 

Aud all around the walls and ground, 
With recent blood besprent. 

He call'd his child ; no voice replied ; 

He search'd with terror wild ; 
Blood, blood, he found on every side, 

But no where found the child ! 

" Hell-hound, by thee my child's devour'd 

The frantic father cried : 
And to the hilt the vengeful sword, 

He plunged in Gelert's side. 

His suppliant, as to eanh he fell, 

No pity could impart ; 
But still his Gelert's dying yell 

Past heavy o'er his heart. 

Aroused by Gelert's dying yell, 
Some slumberer waken'd nigh : 

What words the parent's joy can tell, 
To hear his infant cry ! 

Conceal' d between a mingled heap, 
His hurried search had miss'd ; 

All glowing from his rosy sleep, 
His cherub boy he kiss'd ! 



ui 

Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread, 

But the same couch beneath 
Lay a great wolf, all torn, and dead, 

Tremendous still in death ! 

Ah ! what was then Llewelyn's pain, 
For now the truth was clear ; 

The gallant hound the wolf had slain, 
To save Llewelyn's heir. 

Vain, vain was all Llewelyn's woe ; 

" Best of thy kind, adieu ! 
The frantic deed which laid thee low, 

This heart shall ever rue '." 

And now a gallant tomb they raise, 
With costly sculpture deckt ; 

And marbles storied with his praise 
Poor Gelert's bones protect. 

Here never could the spearman pass, 

Or forester, unmoved ; 
Here oft the tear besprinkled grass, 

Llewelyn's sorrow proved. 

And here he hung his horn and spear, 

And o p t as evening fell, 
In fancy's piercing sounds would hear 

Poor Gelert's dying yell ! 



12 



And till great Snowdon's rocks grow old, 

And cease the storm to brave, 
The consecrated spot shall hold 

The name of Gelert's grave. 

Page 5, line 15 : "They speak the language of 
their forefathers." 

The Welsh language, with scarcely a ningle excep- 
tion, appears to be the most ancient, the most singularly 
constructed, and the most true to its original form, of 
all European tongues. Remarkable co-incidences have 
been pointed out to show that it bears a close affinity 
to the Hebrew. It possesses the simplicity of the 
Hebrew, and the copiousness and harmony of the 
Greek. 

In Welsh, initial consonants are changed into others 
of the same organ, either to mark a diversity of gram- 
matical relation, or exclusively for the sake of euphony; 
as bara, fara, mara, bread. Substantives, adjectives, 
and pronouns have no neuter gender. 

The language has no inflexions. Nouns and 
adjectives have, properly speaking, no cases, the dif- 
ferent relations of words to each other being denoted 
by the collocation, by a change of initials, or by the 
employment of particles. 

Page 7, line 19 : "The Knight and the Greyhound." 

A crest of Richard the Third, now preserved in the 

Herald's College, London, is thus described by M. 



113 

Planch^: "On a coronet in a cradle or, a greyhound 
argent for Wales, (in the original ' Walys ') a curious 
allusion to the well-known story of Prince Llewelyn 
and his faithful dog, Gellert ; which has, I believe, 
escaped the notice of previous writers." — See Twelve 
Designs for the Costume of Shakspeare' s Richard III. 
by J. R. PlanchS, Esq. 

Page 9, line 9 : " Except Bardsey." 

Bardsey Island lies at the South-western extremity 
of the Carnarvonshire coast. Its Abbey, " of great 
and old renown," but now no more, was dedicated to 
the Blessed Virgin. The rules of the order were 
remarkable for their severity. Bardsey was a sanc- 
tuary, and continued to be such, even down to the 
dissolution of religious houses. Many a pilgrim and 
among them nobles, princes and prelates from distant 
countries, visited its holy shrine. 

Page 11, line 3: " Appreciated upon earth." 
"Three months after the battle of Agincourt, such 
was either the generosity of the English monarch 
(Henry V.) or the virtue of the Welsh chieftain, per- 
haps such was the effect of both qualities united, that 
the celebrated captain, Sir Gilbert Talbot, was em- 
powered to make peace with Owen and his adherents. 
It is consolatory to all lovers of their own country to 
see the champion of his people thus preserve his 
dignity to the last glimpse of his glorious character 
which history can perceive." 

Mackintosh's Hist, of England, Vol. I. p. 349. 



114 



Page 11, line 10: "This extraordinary little insect." 
"The bees make the tops and bottoms of their cells 
of three planes meeting in a point ; and the inclinations 
or angles at which they meet are precisely those found 
out by the mathematicians to be the best possible 
for saving wax and work. Who would dream of 
the bee knowing the highest branch of the mathe- 
matics—the fruit of Newton's most wonderful dis- 
covery, of which he was himself ignorant, one of his 
most celebrated followers having found it out in a later 
age ? This little insect works with a truth and cor- 
rectness which are perfect, and according to the prin- 
ciples at which man has arrived only after ages of slow 
improvement in the most difficult branch of the most 
difficult science. But the Mighty and All-wise Crea- 
tor, who made the insect and the philosopher, bestow- 
ing reason on the latter, and giving the former to 
work without it—to Him all truths are known from 
all eternity, with an intuition that mocks even the 
conceptions of the sagest of human kind." 

Discourse on the Pleasures of Science, p. 110. 

Page 20, line 3: "Tables of the ancient Greeks 
and Romans." 

The delicious flavour of the salmon is universally 
acknowledged. La Fontaine's Glutton, having eaten 
up a whole salmon, all but the jowl, was taken so ill, 
that his physicians declared him to be past all hope of 
recovery. "Well then," says he, "since it is so, 
bring me t 1 ? rest of my fish." 



115 



Piage 13, line 2 : " Have sunk into oblivion." 
See Dr. Jortin's fine discourse on Religious Retire- 
ment : Sermons. Vol. III. pp. 238—242, ed, 1787: 
and Mrs. Barbauld's Essay on Monastic Institutions; 
As a female writer in whom intellectual power 
and elegance met together, and who was utterly free 
from every thing like morbid sentimentality, Mrs. 
Barbauld stands the very first in the first rank. " The 
Muses, with their attendant arts ;" says she, "in strange 
disguise indeed, and uncouth trappings, took refuge 
in the peaceful gloom of the convent. Statuary 
carved a madonna or a crucifix ; Painting illuminated 
a missal ; Eloquence made the panegyric of a saint ; 
and History composed a legend. Yet still they 
breathed, and were ready, at any happier period, to 
emerge from obscurity with all their native charms 
and undiminished lustre." 

Mrs. Barbauld's Works, Vol. II. p. 201. 

Page 23, line 22 : " Snowdon lifts its majestic 
head." 

The summit of Snowdon is seldom seen at a great 
distance, in the warm and dry months of July and 
August; on the contrary, it is seen at very extra- 
ordinary distances in the months of October and April, 
when the sky is slightly covered and immediately 
after a heavy rain, or a few hours before it falls. It 
appears that the transparency of the air is prodU 
giously increased, when a certain quantity of water is 
uniformly diffused through the atmosphere. 



116 



It has been remarked that the Audes themselves are 
not known with certainty to have been seen at a greater 
distance than forty seven leagues or a hundred and 
forty one geographical mile8. 

Page 28, line 14: "Thought by some zoologists to 
be a distinct race." 

That difference of pasture and of climate makes 
material alterations in the breed of animals, is univer- 
sally acknowledged. Nothing is more remarkable than 
the precisien with which their organs are adapted to 
their situations and habits. An ingenious but whim- 
sical theory is brought forward to explain it, by Mr. 
Lyell, Professor of Geology in King's College, London. 
According to him, they are not the organs, or, in other 
words, the nature and form of the parts of an animal 
which have given him rise to its habits and its particular 
faculties ; but, on the contrary, its habits, its manner of 
living, and the habits of its progenitors have, in the 
Course of time, determined the form of its body, the num- 
ber and condition of its organs, and the faculties which 
it enjoys. This conclusion he illustrates and endeavours 
to establish by a great variety of facts and reasonings. 
"The antelope and the gazelle," he says, "were not 
endowed with light, agile forms, in order that they 
might escape by flight from carnivorous animals; but, 
having been exposed to the danger of being devoured 
by lions, tigers, and other beasts of prey, they were 
compelled to exert themselves in running with great 
celerity, a habit which, in the course of many genera- 



117 

tions, gave rise to the peculiar slentlerness of their legs s 
and the agility and elegance of their forms." 

Lyell's Geology, Vol. II. p. 9. 

Page 34, line 16: "Trifling in amount." 
The wool annually shorn in Great Britain produces 
an amount of upwards of five millions, and, when 
wrought, an amount of nearly twenty millions, sterling. 
The sheep of Lincolnshire yield the greatest quantity 
of wool; but the mutton is coarse and lean. The 
Dorsetshire breed is celebrated for fecundity. 

Page 43, line 6 : "Graves of their departed friends." 

With fairest flowers 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 
The azured hare-bell, like thy veins ; no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine, which not to slander it 
Outsweeten'd not thy breath. 

Shakespeare. 

I'll deck her tomb with flowers, 

The rarest ever seen, 
And with my tears as showers, 

I'll keep them fresh and green. 

Corydon's Dolefiill Knell. 

These to renew with more than annual care, 
That wakeful love with pensive step will go ; 



118 

The hand" that lifts the dibble shakes with fear, 
Lest haply it disturb the friend below. 

Vain fear ! yet who that boasts a heart to feel 
An eye to pity, would that fear reprove ! 
They only who are cursed with breasts of steel, 
Can mock the^foibles of surviving love. 

Mason. 

Page 43, line 11:" Mentioned by the writers of 
Greece and Rome." 

AyafjLSfivovog ds rvfifiog ririfiagfievog 
O'v 7rw7ror£ 6v x°"-S ov kXCjvo. fivpa'ivrjg 
E\af3e. 

Euripides. 

"With no libations, nor with myrtle boughs, 
Were my dear father's manes gratify'd. 

Kal 7Tepl<TT£<pr] Kvic\<t> 
HavT(i)v bg' egrlv avQkuv SrrjKTjv -xaTpbg. 

SoPHOC. Elect. V. 886. 

And flowers of every sort were strewed around. 

Manibus date lilia plenis 
Purpureosque spargam flores, animamque nepotis- 
His saltern accumulem d onis. 

VlRG. jEn. VI. 388, 



119 



Page 51, line 1: "The mystical system of the 
Druids." 

Csesar states it to have been the received opinion in 
Gaul, that Druidism originated in Britain. Pliny 
considers mankind as greatly indebted to the Romans, 
for having put an end to such a monstrous and cruel 
superstition. — Caesar, de Bell. Gall. lib. vi. Plin. 
lib. xxx. c. 1. 

Mr. Pinkerton observes that " there is no authority 
at all for druids being known, beyond present North 
Wales on the north, and the river Garonne, the bound 
of the Celtse in Gaul, on the south. A line drawn by 
the Severn in Britain and Seine in Gaul, forms the 
eastern bound, while the ocean forms the western." — 
Pinkerton's Enquiry, i. 406. 

Page 56, line 18 : " The town of Carnarvon." 
It is generally taken for granted that Carnarvon 
owes its name to Edward the First ; but such cannot 
be the fact. Carnarvon is mentioned by Giraldus, 
who travelled through Wales in the year 1 188 : "Tran- 
sivimus per Carnarvon, id est, Castrum de Arvon. 
Dicitur autem Arvon, provincia contra Mon, eo quod 
sita sit contra Monam insulam." — Itin. Camb. p. 190, 
ed. 1585. 

Page 57, line 19 : "The blessings of education." 
The prejudice once so prevalent, that education un- 
fits the working classes for the duties which belong to 
their station, is now happily dying away. The most 



120 



ample experience is, day by day, showing its fallacy. 
Multitudes are every year sent out of the schools, 
whose industry and skill in their various occupations 
seem to he in direct proportion to their success in 
school. 

It deserves to be mentioned as beyond measure 
honourable to the Duke of Kent that he deeply felt 
the great importance of diffusing the blessings of in- 
struction among the lower orders of the people. The 
improved system of education enjoyed his steady, 
warm and unceasing patronage, and that at a time 
when he had to labour in the sacred cause almost alone 
and unassisted. He introduced it into the army, having 
attached a school to his own regiment. The school 
consisted of the children of the privates and amounted 
to 220. A young man, a sergeant in the regiment, 
was trained for the schoolmaster at the Borough Road, 
and the school was instituted at Maldon in Essex, 
where the regiment was then quartered. The lieu- 
tenant colonel and other officers co-operated with their 
royal commander in his benevolent design. The 
regiment removed its quarters to Dunbar, where the 
establishment was carried on. By permission of the 
Duke a number of the boys went to Edinburgh to il- 
lustrate the system in a lecture which was delivered on 
the subject in the city. On joining the Duke's regi- 
ment, if a recruit was found incapable of reading, he 
was sent to the school, and, as a powerful stimulus to 
exertion, those who made a good proficiency in learning 
were put down as duplicate non-commissioned officers. 



121 



Page 59, line 11 : "An infant school." 
The Infant Schools are calculated te produce the 
greatest, amount of good in their application to the 
working classes, in whose character they promise 
to bring about a total revolution. No one who has 
witnessed their admirable effect in upholding and 
disciplining the heaven-born mind, can fail to wish 
that the same system were practised in the education 
of every class. Its advantages have indeed awakened 
the attention of the higher ranks, many of whom, in 
different parts of the kingdom, are anxious that their 
children should -share in the benefits conferred on the 
children of the poor. 

When Her present Most Gracious Majesty ascended 

the throne of her ancestors, the friends of the Infant 

School at Carnarvon, sent the following congratulatory 

address to Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Kent. 

" Madam, 

"While the voice of joy is heard on 
every side, we, the Managers and Friends of the In- 
fant School in Carnarvon feel ourselves impelled to 
present our tribute of congratulation to your Royal 
Highness, under whose superintendence our beloved 
Sovereign has been so effectually qualified to shed a 
grace on the mightiest and most renowned monarchy 
in the world, to watch, as a guardian angel, over the 
many blessings of our excellent constitution, and to 
become the pride and the delight of her subjects. 
" We cherish a lively remembrance of the visit paid 



122 

a few years ago by your Royal Highness and your 
noble minded Daughter to this romantic district of the 
Principality. On that occasion, your Royal Highness 
was pleased to manifest a kind solicitude that the 
lamp of knowledge should be carried to the peasant's 
hearth, — that the means of elementary instruction 
should be placed within reach of the children of the 
poor, — and especially that they should be taught, as 
soon as the intellect awakes, what is most important 
for them to understand as the creatures of God and as 
candidates for immortality. We cannot forget that 
to your munificence our humble, unpretending institu- 
tion is essentially indebted for its establishment; and 
we are sure your Royal Highness will hear with satis- 
faction that it excites an interest and is leading to 
beneficial results in the town and neighbourhood, 
almost, we believe we may say, altogether, unex- 
ampled. 

" Our prayer shall often ascend to that almighty 
and eternal Being who sitteth in the heaven of heavens, 
that your Royal Highness may long be spared to see 
the fulfilment of your fondest hopes, and to enjoy 
beneath the smiles of a nation's gratitude and love, all 
the happiness which is inseparable from exalted rank, 
when it is adorned and rendered still more illustrious 
by condescension, and by sympathy with the destitute, 
with the widow and the fatherless, and with those who 
have none to help them. 

"Carnarvon, July 20th, 1837." 



123 



Page 63, line 3 : " Remains of some warlike chiefs.'* 
There can be little doubt that the ashes which have 
been sealed up for ages in these dark and lonely cells 
were' those of warlike ehieftains. The remains of their 
vassals would be deposited in the parent earth without 
any distinguishing mark.— See a paper by Sir Richard 
Colt Hoare in the Archaenlogia, Vol. XIX. p. 44. 

Page 65, line 23: "Large and valuable copper 
mine." 

The copper mines of North Wales occur in either 
primitive or transition rocks. The ore lies sometimes 
in masses, more frequently in veins. The working 
of copper in the principality may be traced to a very 
remote period. There is reason to believe that the 
Romans were acquainted with the mine at the Parys 
mountain in Anglesey ; but it was never worked with 
much activity until about seventy years ago. 

Page 66, line 9 : "A loud report like a thunde r 
clap." 

We learn from Dr. Dwight, that a similar explosion 
was heard, about fifty years ago, by the inhabitants of 
Kinsdale township, in New England, from West Rive r 
Mountain, on the Connecticut. Upon repairing to 
the place, they discovered that a metallic substance 
had been forced out of the mountain, the hole which it 
had made being six inches in diameter. A few trees 
which stood near were almost covered with the sub- 



124 



stance which had been ejected, and which consisted 
chiefly of melted and calcined iron ore, strongly re- 
sembling the scoria of a blacksmith's forge. The same 
substance was found upon the rocks and the face of 
the hill in several places, having evidently been pro- 
pelled in a liquid or semi-liquid state. — See DwiGHT'S 
Travels in New England. 

In various parts of the Great Y alley of the Missis- 
sippi, and more particularly along the line of the 
Mississipi and lower part of the Missouri, smoke and 
flame have been observed, sometimes accompanied by 
a strong sulphurous smell ; and those false fires, 
usually known by the nam e of will o' the wisp, are 
stated to be very common, and to play as many tricks 
upon the back settlers, as they were once thought to 
do with our own peasants. — See Major Long's Ac count 
of an Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. 

Page 68, line 15 : "Corpse candles." 

There is a curious little book, entitled, ' A Relation 
of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth, 
and the Principality of Wales ;' by the late Rev. 
Edmund Jones, of the Tranch. The worthy divine 
maintains in the prefatory vindication of his treatise, 
that "they are chiefly women, and men of weak, 
womanish understanding, who chiefly speak against 
the account of spirits and apparitions. In some 
women it comes from a certain proud fineness, exces- 
sive delicacy, and a superfine disposition, which can- 



125 

not bear to be disturbed with what is strange and 
disagreeable to a vain mind. But why should the 
daughters of mother Eve be so averse to hear of the 
adversary, Satan, with whom she first conversed, and 
was deceived by him !"_" Some," he says, "have seen 
the resemblance of a skull carrying the corpse candle, 
others the shape of the person who is to die carrying 
the candle between its forefingers, holding the light 
before its face. Some have said, that they saw th e 
shape of those who were to be at the burying. I am 
willing to suspend my belief of this, as seeming to be 
extravagant, though their foreboding knowledge of 
mortality appears to be very wonderful and unde- 
niable." 

Page 68, line 15 : " The will o' the wisp." 
The ignis fatuus has afforded Milton a subject for 
one of his most highly wrought similes : — 
As when a wandering fire 
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night 
Condenses, and the cold environs round 
Kindled through agitation to a flame, 
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, 
Hovering and blazing with delusive light, 
Misleads th' amazed night-wanderer from his way 
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond and pool, 
There swallow'd up and lost, from succour far ; 
So glister'd the dire snake. 

Par. Lost, ix. 634, 



126 

Page 68, Hue 20 : " Attribute to supernatural in. 
fluence." 

The following lines in Akenside's ' Pleasures of 
Imagination ' are extremely happy. They would of 
themselves have gone far to secure him a very high 
place in his department of English literature. 

" Hence by night 
The village matron, round the blazing hearth 
Suspends the infant audience with her tales, 
Breathing astonishment ! of witching rhymes, 
And evil spirits ; of the death-bed call 
Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd 
The orphan's portion ; of unquiet souls 
Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt 
Of deeds in life conceal'd ; of shapes that walk 
At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave 
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. 
At every solemn pause the crowd recoil 
Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd 
With shivering sighs : till eager for the event, 
Around the beldame all arrect they hang, 
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd." 

Bk. I. 1. 255. 

Page 71, line 3 : " Died of a broken heart." 
" Wilson is now numbered with the classics of the 
art, though little more than the fifth part of a century 
has elapsed since death relieved him from the apathy 



127 

of the cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect 
of a tasteless public." — Fuseli. 

Page 73, line 5 : " Vortigern." 

His name in Welsh is " Gwrtheyrn ;" and he is so 
called in the Annates Menveenses. It signifies Vir 
princeps or potens — chief or powerful man ; from 
"Gwr," vir and "Teyrn," princeps, potens. — See Dr. 
Davies's Diet, in verb. 

Page 73, line 16 : " Stonehenge." 

The fortresses and castle s of the Britons, and this 
stupendous monument and similar pillared circles and 
enclosures in various parts of the kingdom, dedicated 
to the worship of their divinities or to the solemn 
deliberations of their kings and legislators, are evi- 
dences of a high degree of architectural skill. 

Page 92, line 2 : " The water lily." 
" It closes its flowers in the afternoon, and lays them 
down upon the surface of the water till morning, when 
it raises and expands them, often in a bright day , to 
several inches above the water." — Sir J. E. Smith's 
Introd. to Botany, p. 335. 

calls the lily from her sleep 

Prolong'd beneath the bordering deep. 

Wordsworth. 

Where silver bright the water lilies blow. 

Rogers. 



128 

The cups of water lilies are not stirr'ci 
By passing eddies, but with countenance 
Turn'd up to heaven, they lie and let the dark 
Come down on them, and then they pass beneath 
Into their watery bed, till the young morn 
Looks slant upon the surface of the stream. 

ASHFORD. 

Yes, thou art day's own flower— for, when he's fled, 
Sorrowing thou droop'st beneath the wave thine head ; 
And watching, weeping through the livelong night, 
Look'st forth impatient for the dawning light ; 
And, as it brightens into perfect day, 
Dost from the inmost fold thy breast display. 

Mrs. SlGOURNEY. 

Page 95, line 11:" Dr. Godfrey Goodman." 
A short notice of the dean's uncle Dr. Gabriel 
Goodman, can scarcely be uninteresting. He also 
was a native of the principality, and for forty years 
he was dean of Westminster. The bible was trans- 
lated into Welsh at his cost, and he founded and 
munificently endowed the Grammar School, which is 
still in high reputation, at Ruthin. He purchased a 
mansion at Chiswick, a few miles from London, where 
he planted with his own hands an avenue of elm trees, 
to serve as a shady retreat for the master and scholars 
of Westminster School. It was under the patronage 
of the dean that Camden, the celebrated antiquary and 
historian travelled through England • and Wales, to 



129 



survey the country and collect materials for his 
' Britannia,' which for more than two centuries has 
been regarded as a standard work. Dr. Goodman 
died in 1603, bequeathing the greater part of his large 
property to charitable purposes. He was buried in 
Westminster Abbey, 



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